New screenshots from canceled Paradox sim Life By You show off all the fits we’ll never get

rockpapershotgun.com:

It is I, the wound salter. The injury insult adder. Life By You, the simulation life-em-up from Paradox, was canceled in June after being delayed indefinitely. The day after the cancellation - which Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester implied was down to a “lacking”, unfixable development state - designer Willem Delventhal spoke about his time at the subsequently shuttered Paradox Tectonic. He claimed the team spent a month “in purgatory” prior to being told of the game’s cancelation and studio shuttering two weeks before launch, despite being told by higher-ups that work was “exceeding expectations.”

We’ve now got another look at a game we’ll likely never get, thanks to a thread by Twxbbly user SimMattically collating unseen screenshots from portfolios by several artists who worked on Life By You.

Admittedly, the screens aren’t worlds apart from the most recent gameplay shown off by Tectonic, but that’s unsurprising considering how near the game was to release. The character customisation does look sharper and more detailed from where I’m sitting though, and the birds-eye house shots and those of the surrounding area do seem a little more cohesive and crisp than previous looks. There are also many snazzy outfits, which I’m sure are a big part of the reason people play these games to begin with, although I personally do not feel represented in the lack of coffee-stained trackie bottoms.

“Life by You had a number of strengths and the hard work of a dedicated team that went into realizing them,” said Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester at the time. “However, when we come to a point where we believe that more time will not get us close enough to a version we would be satisfied with, then we believe it is better to stop.”

“This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who’ve worked hard on Life by You’s Early Access release,” Wester said of the studio’s closure. “Sadly, with cancellation of their sole project, we have to take the tough decision to close