Life By You might become The Sims 4's biggest competition, but it was partially inspired by a very different game

Paradox Interactive's upcoming life simulator, Life By You, might be an upcoming challenger to The Sims, but it shares a similar core ethos with that of a very unexpected board game: chess.

"As a game designer, one thing I enjoy so much is working with a game that clearly shouldn't have any victory conditions," Life By You studio lead Rod Humble told Edge Magazine in issue #392. "There's a lovely Italian folk saying: at the end of the game, the Queen and the Pawn get back in the same box. There aren't any winners or losers in life. You just live a life, and life sims are a great equalizer."

This Italian proverb is part of what inspired Paradox to take a swing at creating one of the most moddable life simulator experiences ever. According to Humble, "Making a life sim means bringing games to the most important thing in the world – our lives – and being able to help players tell stories that they can relate to, that are very personal, that they couldn't in any other medium." With fully customizable families, homes, and worlds for them to live in, Life By You is enough to pique the interest of any avid Sims 4 fan.

To the uninitiated, choosing between porridge or fried eggs for breakfast doesn't sound very exciting. But with life sims being such "great equalizers", offering an even playing field with no winners or losers, they can also transform the most mundane facets of life into key gameplay features.

In this way, Life by You seems to have presented unique developmental challenges to Paradox. "The design questions that come up are different from other games', like figuring out how many times an elf shoots their bow every second," said Humble. "This is really important stuff that everybody can relate to – like, how do you wake up in the morning? What kind of breakfast do you want?"

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Jasmine is a Senior Staff Writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London, she began her journalism career as a freelancer with TheGamer and TechRadar Gaming before joining GR+ full-time in 2023. She now focuses predominantly on features content for GamesRadar+, attending game previews, and key international conferences such as Gamescom and Digital Dragons in between regular interviews, opinion pieces, and the occasional stint with the news or guides teams. In her spare time, you'll likely find Jasmine challenging her friends to a Resident Evil 2 speedrun, purchasing another book she's unlikely to read, or complaining about the weather.