Making video games is hard, and sometimes, it’s cheaper for publishers to outright cancel a game than giving it more time in the oven. Paradox announced that Life By You, its The Sims competitor, had been cancelled, and following that news, the internal devlopment team, Paradox Tectonic, has been shuttered.
The news of the game’s cancellation came as a shock to many. It had been delayed several times, including an indefinite delay anounced back in May, but outright cancelling a project that seemed to be so close to the finish line is drastic.
In a statement delivered via the company’s Paradox Forum, deputy CEO Mattias Lilja wrote that the decision to cancel the game was made due to “a clear failure on Paradox’s part to meet both our own and the community’s expectations.” The game was ambitious and promised a fully simulated town with no loading screens.
The game was due to launch in early access, sopmething that gives developers time to iron out kinks, take more time to create feaatures, and get lots of free community testing and feedback. However, it seems the company didn’t believe this would be enough to save the game.
“A few weeks back, we decided to hold off on an Early Access release in order to re-evaluate Life by You, as we still felt that the game was lacking in some key areas. Though a time extension was an option, once we took that pause to get a wider view of the game, it became clear to us that the road leading to a release that we felt confident about was far too long and uncertain.”
As the internal development studio Paradox Tectonic was only working on Life By You, it has been closed. CEO Fredrik Wester released a statement on the company website that read “Paradox Interactive has decided to cease further operations in the wholly owned studio Paradox Tectonic (Tectonic) in Berkeley, California. The studio has since 2019 led the development of the game Life by You, whose release is canceled, and employs 24 people.”
NME has reached out to ask if the 24 employees will be moved elsewhere within Paradox or if they have been let go.
In other news, Zelda is finally playable in a mainline game, but not everyone is happy with that.