Paradox Interactive has announced another delay for its ambitious Sims-like Life By You, which is now due to enter Steam and Epic Games Store early access on 4th June.
Life By You, the first game from Paradox’s Tectonic studio (headed up by former Sims boss and Second Life CEO Rod Humble), was officially unveiled last March, promising a game that would let players “create humans and live out their lives without loading screens”.
It is, essentially, the Sims, albeit with a few key selling points intended to differentiate it from the current iteration of EA’s juggernaut franchise: it’s fully open-world with no loading screens, it features “real language conversation”, its digital human can optionally be controlled directly in first-person, and “everything is customisable”. It also sports a more realistic art style compared to the Sims 4, which, last year at least, unfortunately looked both drab and bland.
Life By You was originally supposed to launch into PC early access last September, but July brought the news Paradox would pushing its release back to 5th March this year, so it could improve the game’s UI, visuals, and just generally deliver a “more well-rounded experience”.
However, it seems we’re still not quite there; Paradox has now announced a further delay for Life By You, saying it’s now aiming to launch the game into Steam and Epic Games Store early access on 4th June, with the additional time supposedly enabling Tectonic to “ensure that it’s as smooth and fun…as possible, and lays a strong foundation for building out [the game] during early access.”
An accompanying FAQ details a fairly lengthy list of areas it’s still looking to address ahead of Life By You’s early access launch, including bugs, performance and stability, character art, proportions, character idles and facial animations, reduced clothing clipping, smoother animation transitions, building assets and UI, gameplay refinements, and mod tool usability.
As part of its delay announcement, Paradox has decided to suspend all pre-orders for Life By You and will be offering refunds to those that want one. Additionally, two pre-order-exclusive item packs – the Life Begins and Nightlife Vibes Packs – will now be available to all early access players when the game finally shows up.