Sims competitor Life By You delayed to June to refine gameplay and 'add more life' to character faces

The life simulation game in development by Rod Humble and team at Paradox Tectonic, Life By You, is sliding back a few months in the release calendar of new 2024 games. Previously planned for early access in March, it will now launch on June 4. 

In a video message to fans alongside the announcement, Humble says, "As a team, we are so stoked for this date change," which is definitely unlike the apologetic tone that delays are usually couched in. "It gives us a little bit of extra time to really focus on a quality player experience and a fun game right from the start of early access."

In the blog post announcing the delay, Paradox outlines quite a few areas for improvement from player feedback that it wants to spend the extra few months addressing. As expected that list includes bug fixes and addressing performance and stability. Improvements to modding tools are also on the list, which Life By You has continued to make a core part of its identity.

Paradox Tectonic also wants to address a lot of feedback on character designs including proportions, facial animations, clothing clipping, and animations. "We're looking to add more life to the face," Humble says. "The face and the eyes are the windows to the soul and we think that right now we're a little off where we want to be for the start of early access." I'll admit I've been one of the people that feels Life By You looks slightly uncanny, so it's good to see Paradox taking that feedback seriously.

Paradox says that all players who have pre-ordered Life By You will be refunded and can find more information on the Life By You FAQ page. With the delay, players can add the game to their wishlist on the Epic Store and Steam but there will be no preorder options available. "We deeply apologize to those of you who have pre-ordered, whether it be once or twice," Paradox says. "While we've sincerely appreciated your support, we are not going to ask you to do so a third time." 

The Sims has long been in need of a little healthy competition in the life simulation space. From what we know of it, Life By You boasts an extremely customizable and moddable open world sandbox experience. Add to that travel by car, an over-the-shoulder camera view for your characters, and sharable customized quests between players to the list of things The Sims just doesn't do. I hope Paradox can really nail the extreme sandbox qualities that could make Life by You a new force in the life sim genre.

After first being delayed from September 2023 to March of this year, Life By You will now launch on June 4 on Steam and the Epic Store, with plans to remain in early access for at least a year.