The ever-popular life-sim game The Sims is being challenged by Life by You, a game developed by Paradox Interactive and released in Early Access on September 12. Supporters of the game tout its open world, “complete” experience with no core features held back– and the promise of mods to make it even better. What sets Life by You apart from other life-sim games is the unusually robust character and architectural creator as well as primary game files that players can access, edit, and customize.
Paradox Interactive, which created Life by You for fans of sim games, is no stranger to gaming. Dedicated to developing games for a living-room experience, their notable titles include Cities: Skylines and Stellaris. They have ventured even further with multiple expansions, DLCs, and custom-built features.
Rod Humble, General Manager of Life by You, previously worked on The Sims 2 & 3. He highlights how the game’s success or failure will hinge on whether the Sims’ modding community buys into Life by You. Paradox aims to make sure modding is as easy as possible by giving players easy access to the very same in-game tools that their developers use.
The game’s concept focuses on the story that a player is entering a coastal town and inhabiting a person to complete life- or job-related quests. Players are able to switch constantly between one another, even if they’re located far apart. Conversation options may be customized in the same way, allowing for the addition of regional dialects or even a new language entirely.
In addition to these features, Life by You also allows for the adjustment of its base configuration file, allowing for the alteration of population demographics, racial diversity, sexual orientation percentages, and more. As far as the game’s hardware capabilities go, recommended specs are 16GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 2060 or higher.
This much accessibility presents a major contrast to the Sims 4 experience, incentivizing players to migrate to the new experience of Life by You. Modding is also taken very seriously in this game, with plans to only ever add to existing code rather than modify it once version 1.0 is released. This means that any mods designed to work with the core systems will not be invalidated with the addition of new features.
As of now, it is hard to say if this new sim game will become popular and dethrone The Sims 4. However, Life by You has comprehensive features and an eager mod-making fanbase, giving it a good chance at success. Players should do their research, as every game offers something different, and decide what kind of experience they are looking for before setting down roots in whichever digital world they prefer.
