Paradox announces The Sims-like game Life by You
Paradox studio Tectonic has announced its first game: Life by You. The life sim will be open world and players can play all the characters in that game world they want. Head of the studio is Rod Humble, former head of The Sims brand.
Life by You seems to share a lot of gameplay with The Sims games and has an open world, like The Sims 3 had. Unlike the EA games, in Life by You, players can take over any characters they want, including outside the household. In Life by You there is also more emphasis on quests that players can perform and XP that can be gained. For example, quests can be about planting flowers.
At the bottom of the screen, users continuously see the basic needs of the characters, which consist of hunger, pleasure, thirst, sleep, toilet needs, hygiene and social needs. Pop-ups above characters allow players to see what the characters are doing, even if they are not directly in control. Characters can skateboard, ride a bike and drive a car to move around the open world.
Paradox says characters have “real conversations,” which are based on the character’s “unique situation.” In The Sims games, players only see clouds with certain icons in them, but in Life by You, players see texts on screen. The Paradox game also has a third-person mode, in which the camera follows the character. For example, Tectonic shows how a character walks through a store and the camera follows the character.
The developer says that players can customize a lot of the games and give them a lot of freedom, such as choosing the colors of individual pieces of furniture and easily moving buildings around the game world. Tectonic also emphasizes the modability of the game. Players can create male, female, or non-binary characters, and those characters can also fall in love with male, female, or non-binary characters, or a combination of these.
The game is made by Paradox Tectonic, a Paradox studio founded in 2019. Rod Humble heads up Tectonic; Humble was head of The Sims brand around the time of The Sims 3’s release in 2009. He later became CEO of Linden Lab, developer of Second Life. Life by You will be released on September 12 on Steam and the Epic Games Store as Early Access and costs 40 euros.