A former Life by You developer has spoken out about his experiences working on the now-canceled life sim, which he says was "a strong project ready to launch to a strong audience".
Speaking on LinkedIn, designer Willem Delventhal shared his thoughts about the seemingly sudden cancellation of Life by You. He also says he was "warned against writing anything" about it on the grounds that doing so may hurt his career or even invite legal action.
According to Delventhal, Life by You was doing "extremely well", having exceeded an important "internal metric" significantly, as well as receiving a "thumbs up a few weeks before launch".
Delventhal goes on to say that despite these encouraging signs, Paradox Tectonic was then told "two weeks before launch" that the game wouldn't be launching after all.
The team then found out the studio would be closing and that they would all lose their jobs "via a public announcement", so it sounds like there was no internal heads-up before Paradox posted about Tectonic's closure yesterday.
According to Delventhal, no reason was given to him or his team regarding Life by You's closure; instead, he says the devs "spent a month in purgatory", trying everything from finding potential new buyers to "going indie" in order to save Life by You.
Rather cryptically, Delventhal says he has "guesses" about what happened to Life by You behind the scenes, and that while "some of them are understandable", many aren't.
He closes by saying he's "pretty pissed" about the situation with Life by You, and that the industry has become a place in which an AA game that "deliver[s] more than expected" can be shut down two weeks before launch.
In-development projects are canceled frequently, both behind the scenes and in a public-facing manner. Life by You's frequent communication and repeatedly announced (albeit also repeatedly delayed) release dates arguably make it something of an anomaly in this area, though.
We may never know exactly why Life by You was canceled, but sadly, canceled it is, so it looks like nothing's knocking The Sims 4 off its throne constructed from Simoleons anytime soon. Stay tuned for more.
