Ever since the release of the first entry in 2000, EA’s The Sims games have had a monopoly on the life-simulator corner of the market. It’s not very hard to see why, with EA having released four successful mainline Sims games, thousands of DLC packs, and several mobile games. However, with EA having reigned over the life sim market for nearly twenty-five years and not having released a new Sims game in nearly ten, some fans are looking for an alternative to The Sims. Developed by Paradox Interactive, Life by You is one such possible Sims alternative and all signs say that EA might have some serious competition on their hands.
Life by You was first announced with a trailer in March 2023. In a press release accompanying the trailer, Paradox Interactive billed the game as “the most moddable and open life simulator,” and announced that the Berkley-based Paradox Tectonic would be developing the game. The studio, led by video game veteran and former Sims developer Rod Humble, had previously developed many other simulator games, including the popular city builder Cities: Skylines and all of its various DLC. Other games developed by Paradox Interactive include Crusader Kings, Empire of Sin, and Surviving the Aftermath, all of which focus on a “play it your way” mentality.
Continuing in the same vein as its previous works, Paradox Interactive has put a lot of emphasis on the customization options available in Life by You, claiming that everything in the game world will be customizable. Rod Humble has said that the game will allow “unprecedented freedom of expression” and that “The game’s extensive customization tools allow for unparalleled levels of storytelling.” The announcement trailer for Life by You supports Humble’s claims, showing that players will be able to build entire custom towns, as well as color-swap furniture items. Meanwhile, The Sims games, while offering a great array of customization options, place limits on what the player has control over. Certain lots cannot be customized without cheats or mods, and all of the furniture is limited to certain design swatches, which can be sparse at best.
Life by You Promises What The Sims Lacks
Another exciting feature outlined in the Life by You announcement trailer is that characters are shown interacting in English. This is in direct contrast to The Sims series, which has Sims talk in a made-up language called Simlish. While Simlish is an undeniable hallmark of the Sims games and charming in its own way, it can get a little annoying to never understand what your Sims are saying to each other, even in life-changing conversations. Seeing Life by You use real language to prioritize conversations is refreshing, especially since Paradox Tectonic has claimed that every conversation is generated based on each character’s unique situation.
Aside from the conversations, another feature of Life by You that could put it above The Sims is the promised quest-based storytelling. To its credit, The Sims has some experience with storytelling in the past. Games like The Sims: Medieval and The Sims 3 had good quests and storytelling features, but those have all but faded away with The Sims 4. EA’s most recent Sims game doesn’t have much in the way of a story, instead choosing to give the player so much freedom that it can lack direction or motivation at times. Life by You, on the other hand, has promised that discovering in-game quests for your humans to complete will unlock new experiences for players.
Overall, Life by You could be a breath of fresh air for fans of life simulator games that are tired of playing The Sims for the last two decades. While Life by You has promised a lot of features that could put it a step above EA’s famous franchise, the one thing that could set it apart entirely is that Paradox Interactive is releasing Life by You relatively soon. The Sims‘ latest game, The Sims 4, was released back in 2014, and EA has been riding a wave of expansion packs ever since. Some fans are reasonably tired of waiting for The Sims 5 and looking for a new way to play life sim games, which could be where Life by You finds its market.
Life by You will be released for pre-order and Early Access on PC on March 5th, 2024.
