The game, which was first revealed in 2023, sounded impressive: it was designed to allow for the entire town to be simulated in real-time and have no loading screens. However, based on a forum post by Paradox’s deputy CEO Mattias Lilja, the game had some issues that may not have been easily fixable even with additional time for development.

“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,” Lilja says. “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.”

Lilja says that the game “had a number of strengths,” but the company realized that “when we come to a point where we believe that more time will not get us close enough to a version we would be satisfied with, then we believe it is better to stop.”

The Life by You team hasn’t been the only one trying to make a new take on The Sims: former XCOM developers recently launched Midsummer Studios to develop a new life sim game of their own. But EA is hard at work on more Sims as well, developing a new free-to-play Sims game codenamed Project Rene.