As promised,Paradox-Tectonichosted their announcement event for their upcoming game Life By You. The game is set to release in early access for PC users on September 12 later this year. This news comes to us via a half-hour-long announcement presentation co-hosted in part by Ron Humble — one of the minds previously driving the development ofThe Sims— showing off the new game and its promised features.
Life By You is being developed by Paradox Tectonic and the game is clearly posturing itself to be a competitor to life simulator game giant The Sims. With the previously mentioned Humble on board, the game has laid its course and set its sights on its main rival, which itself is teasing the release of the next project in the franchise,Project Rene.
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Repeatably throughout the presentation, the game’s modability and persistent world were touted as its primary features. Paradox claims that they will work closely with the community of people who take them up on their early access offer to refine the game, by giving early access testers creator tools to mod the game to their hearts' content.
In advertising the game’s features they also made sly digs at their main rival, The Sims, such as their highlight on real life languages in-game rather than a made-up one, and the continuous world unbroken by loading screens (a lack of “rabbit holes” as Humble put it). Language and conversation are promised to be another avenue for emergent storytelling within the game and emphasizes Life By You’s aim for realism rather than the cartoonish approach employed by The Sims.
This can also be seen in the depth of customization shown off by the game which promises to be extensive and robust but still firmly within the realm of the real, though with the game’s promise of high modability baked in, it remains to be seen.
Overall, the promises made during the demo seem to be focused on player choice and freedom, with a focus on the real but with the option of players to throw off the shackles of reality and live out their wildest fantasies without the game standing in their way.
Watching Paradox-Tectonic boldly throw itself in front of the speeding train that isEA’s The Sims with this much confidence may cause some to flinch. But the devs must have confidence in their new features they promise to carve out a niche audience in thelife simulator crowd, and after all, there have been a lot of derailments in the news recently.
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