Paradox exec admits canceled life sim Life By You wasn't "actually clearly better than Sims 4 in any of its main areas"

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Life By You was canceled in June

Life By You
(Image credit: Paradox)

Paradox Interactive chief creative officer Henrik Fåhraeus says the canceled life sim Life By You wasn't actually better than The Sims 4 in any major way.

Life By You was positioned as a direct competitor to The Sims 4 before it was canceled in June 2024. However, in a new interview with Game File (paywalled), Fåhraeus admits it failed to deliver.

"An early access game needs, I think, needs to be really, really polished and fun, what's there, at least," Fåhraeus says. "You can have a lot of missing stuff in the late game and be very thin on content. But it needs to be a really good experience. And I don't think this could have been that for the foreseeable future.

"I also don't think that it was actually clearly better than Sims 4 in any of its main areas."

As if it needs to be said, that's an incredibly damning statement from the top of a game's publisher positioned to compete with The Sims 4. And believe it or not, it's debatable whether this is the most damning thing we've heard from Paradox about Life By You. Back when the game was canceled, Fåhraeus had this to say: "We thought maybe another extension will get us where we're going and then finally realized everything will be worse if we keep going, so we have to stop."

Fåhraeus also said at the time that, "A lot of the flaws were super clear and we saw the flaws individually."

The exact reason for the cancelation has never been made explicitly clear, but at least judging from these comments, it sounds like the game just wasn't very good, which is a shame because The Sims could've really used some competition in the space.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.