Holy Shit!!!! Really? I'm ecstatic. The world looks stunning. I'll definitely be tuning in to see if it's a real competitor to the Sims franchise. I need to see how the actual people will look as this rough draft didn't fill me with awe, but that world is gorgeous. Not to cartoony. I can see the leaves on the trees and the grass looks beautiful.

My only fear is that "what if it ends up looking and being too realistic?" One thing I absolutely hate in Sims 3 and 4 are their expressions, they're just awful and if we got more realistic looking characters doing similar expressions I probably couldn't handle playing it because I'd be so uncomfortable with that. I'm also unsure if I'd enjoy serious life simulator without any of the silly things from Sims happening in it. Although I'd definitely enjoy it if it was meant for more mature audience than Sims 4 is and had some darker themes and less poop and pee humor.

I totally agree. There needs to be some fun and humorous things. From the drunken gnome in 1 all the way through now. My avatar was the only child born in my legacy with the evil trait. When the toilet was broken and water all over the floor she had the most evil grin, and when dad was trying to repair it. We need some silly things to not make it be boring and no personality.

The game looks promising 👀

Well, I am ecstatic at the premise at the very least. Graphically, it looks VERY Sims 3-like, which makes sense given the pedigree of the team. Having said that, I definitely don't mind and can even prefer (if done right) a more realistic art direction but currently it looks a little rough to me. The characters from a distance appear very blocky and the few animations there were...yeah, not good. It feels very made in 2008 and I hope that's because they're still early in development. The prospect of an open world though has already hooked me and aside from the super blurry sky, the world itself looks pretty. The video quality isn't the best but I am already appreciating that they aren't depicting every item as if it were made of plastic.

I definitely look forward to the 20th if only to know at what stage of development they're currently in. I really hope they let it cook. Given enough time and resources, I have no doubt Rod Humble (who gave us the most ambitious sims title) could create a quality product for modern audiences.

Life by You is included in today's trailer "Coming in 2023 from Paradox Interactive". Rod Humble has been GM of Paradox Tectonic for 4 years 10 months since June 2018 according to his linkedin so it's possible the game is further along than it looked from the teaser. Or they're pushing it out to recoup their investment or possibly gauge public reaction before committing to more dev time?



Crossing my fingers for good news on the 20th.

It really does! I absolutely love Cities Skylines, after the disaster of SimCity 2013 I was very glad of it!

That's the worst logo I've ever seen. It looks promising though, definitely tuning in the 20th

I'm disappointed that the background for Life By You in the video posted above is just a bunch of trees. If it's getting published during this year I expect it to be far in development, so I'm wondering if the focus of this game will be the characters (let's call them Lifers or Cims, like in Cities Skylines) or if they're trying to differentiate themselves from the Sims franchise by putting the focus on the world building. It's clearly going to be a life simulator, that's in the game's title, but what many of us want is a "family simulator", we want the main attraction to be the people and so far we've seen very little of them, from afar. I hope this is done on purpose to generate hype, we're all asking ourselves how they're gonna look like, what the gameplay is gonna be like in Live Mode... But maybe it's not a selling strategy, maybe this videogame is simply focusing on other aspects and we're all biased by the Sims' egemony on this videogame genre, we're so accustomed to a certain type of life simulation gameplay that it's difficult to imagine something different.

Honestly my biggest fear is that this is gonna be literally Sims 3 with the serial numbers filed off. I know people exalt it now for its open world, but I'm really worried that it will continue the negative aspects of Sims 3: Sims being less expressive, the player having little to no input what happens to families that aren't played right now...things like restaurants and shops that were visit-able lots in the sims 2 becoming rabbit holes, collecting gemstones and seeds instead of having deep family gameplay... Also right now I'm worried that we will have a situation again where, in the base game, you won't even be able to swim in the ocean.
I really hope this will be better than Sims 3 isntead of really just being Sims 3 under a different name.

^Agreed. To me it feels so similar that it almost feels more apt to call this its successor instead of TS4. I'm glad it seems to be following TS3's formula as I think that's the right path for the future of life sims, but I hope Paradox isn't going into this just trying to make a modern version of it to juxtapose what EA is currently doing. TS3 was in no way a perfect game and so many things can be significantly evolved and added to further the genre.

This is the same studio that looked at SimCity 2013 and said yeah we can do it better. If Paradox wants to take TS3 and do the same thing, then great. I have faith that they can do an open-world life simulator justice. As long as it's not as laggy and poorly optimized as TS3, I think giving them a chance is only fair. We need variety in this monopoly EA has over this genre. If Life by You wants to lean into world-building awesome. That will be my go-to game for that.

On a side note, I hope they pull a SimCity 4/Sims 2 and make the world creation interwoven or cross-compatible with the New Cities Skyline game. Importing terrain from SimCity 4 into the TS2 was a cool idea. I would love to see Paradox implement and expand on that feature.

LOL - I did not count but it seems there are more posts in this thread than in the YouTube one.

Anyway, what surprises me most is the fact that the original game came out a bit more than 23 years ago and that in all those decades it had but one competitor, the (in?)famous Singles; now (why now and not years ago?) there are at least four coming out (not counting TS5), sharpening their teeth in order to devour the original and each other. That they will undoubtedly do, though I have a strange feeling that I already know which the last game standing will be - unless EA pull off another colossal blunder. Which, of course, they are quite capable of.

As for the video: obviously the architecture (etc.) and the environment are the (relatively) easy part; Paralives had it done quite a while ago. But that's only the background: the hard part are the Sims. Paralives are still struggling with them and in this video, you can't see anything but shadows and no real interactions (with the exception of women kissing: lesbians sell - lesson learned from the original Sims game). We have no idea how they really look and dress, what their needs and wants are, what careers will be available to them, which one will they choose and why, etc. etc.

Singles was not a great game but they got one thing right: they put their Sims (I'll just call them that) front and center. This is also the reason why TS2 is still my favorite Sims game; TS3 environment is far more beautiful and its Sims' looks are far more adaptable but their needs, etc., are far more limited. As for the new competition: I would be quite happy playing a game on a tedious flat map with basic box locations and with my Sims living in a basic box house with basic furniture and a couple of trees behind it but, at the same time, looking interesting and, above all, leading a life far richer than in any of the existing games.

In short, the new game developers seem to employ good architects but what they really need are good writers.

I agree also; what Sims 3 and 4 lacked was character history; I know in Sims 3 we had memories of a sort, but TS2 had it best I feel, as I can look at any sims' memories and see everything that happened to them, and the people that were important to them.

I haven't played with any of the Sims 4 expansions, but I don't think they have anything like that, do they?

By Rod Humble omg !!! Finally after giving us for 20 years his high-end pc gamer, he created a sim game hahaha !!
To me it's wait and see. Because at first I was excited by Paralives now I won't buy it.

I have never been on the Paralives OOH AAH bandwagon, but I am very curious to watch this. Really looking forward to learning more.

I am definitely looking forward to this. Rod Humble and obvious inspiration by Sims 3 are pretty good connections to me. Yes, Sims 3 had its issues, but for me it's still the best Sims game in many aspects. Open world that made it easier to manage my whole family, traits that actually had meaning and a lot other things for which I still love the game. If Paradox will learn from Sims 3 mistakes (and be honest, as great a game as it is, there still were many) and will improve on the concept, then it surely will be great game.
But after experiences with Cities: Skylines, I am a little worried about DLCs, but I doubt it could be worse than Sims 4, especially recently with all the kits

Very true. I love Rimworld for this reason and that game is butt-ugly. Sims 4 can admittedly be very pretty at times but, well, we know what the issues are there.

Let's hear it for butt-ugly games!

I am a real sucker for beautiful games and so it was quite hard for me to get into Rimworld; once I was finally in, however, I could not get out - and I don't want to, either. The tapestry of characters and their relations is richer than in any other game I know: making the starting group is intriguing enough but then, the game throws at you a thousand things you did not even dream about.
Pova is right to bring it up: this is a game that any Sims developer should study very carefully before starting their own.

I'm just thrilled that there is finally another game by a competitor. I'm thrilled that Paradox took this on. and I like that it is an open world, or appears to be. I cannot stand sims 4 with is limited worlds. I've read the discussions here on so many threads about how awful the game is, and how messed up it is every time they add on another game pack, or EP and so on. I uninstalled sims 4 years ago, I think I had purchased maybe 1 EP and 1 GP... the game was so empty and boring... so I've just been waiting it out.

Paralives doesn't look bad to me, it's just a different art style. it's actual game play might be fun. I'm not a fan of the sims4 art style.

Paradox seems open to what the fans want and try to implement in their games. Colossal order did a great job with City Skylines. their EP's were not overpriced and added so many things that people asked for. So with the announcement of Cities 2, I can't wait to see what is to come with that game.

I'm going to stay positive with the new "Life By you". I think the dedicated fans of the Sims deserve to have some choices and not be stuck with the overpriced monstrosity that EA has been shelling out for so many years.

If it will be like Sims 3 in terms of features and looks, I really hope they add something like Open For Business from Sims 2. I really miss that when playing Sims 3. OFB adds a lot of variety to self employed sims. Painter with their own gallery (run by themselves or their partner if it is a seperate job). Crazy inventor living in a junkyard, selling their own gizmo's from a stall. Sim who fixes cars in their own garage. Obviously, farmer who sells their own produce through stall on same lot or shop. It could be so versatile and expanded upon with mods.

The consignment store just doesn't fit with selling home produced wine somehow

I also hope they will look at Sims 3 skills and how they all have their own challenges that give rewards or make them more worthwile and overlap with other skills. (Martial Arts also raising Athletics, Inventing also raising Handiness). And the gazillion hidden skills (which might be visible imo too).

I'm cautiously optimistic. I love Sims3 and buying a carbon copy and spending money on DLC and dealing with patch updates for another few years wouldn't really make much sense to me.
So, it would have to offer something truly new and different in addition to what I already have from Sims3.

Simply "it plays well on a potato" is not going to be an incentive all by itself. My game works very nicely and maybe I'm getting too old to learn how to optimize another game and deal with patches and updates and such.

As for the comment about including something like Open for Business, we have a mod for that already in Sims3, so again, it would need to offer something truly different and advanced in that regard. Simply being better than Sims4 is a bar that's way too low for me.
Let's see what the actual trailer shows.

I remember him from TS3 days. It did occur to me before but the studio being located around the same area as EA, I think we'll probably see a lot of former Maxis employees working on this. And that's good because they have the experience and now they can get a chance to build a similar style game but under a better publisher.

I completely understand, what I don't like in, Paralives is too much like a drawing for the moment, it seems like fake to me.
People criticizes the sims 4 visuals, that's okay to do, but the visual as not as flat as it seems.
I sometimes like watching how a game is progressing because it is always something pleasant to see. No matter if I'll or not buy the game, if hype or not the game.

If this game is made by our god Will Wright, I really hope it will take the crazy of the sims 1 and the maturity of the sims 2. I really hope it isn't too much "right-on" because I am tired of that, despite of, creators are censored ! We want to play with a parody of Mankind, not with Realism too much. The sims 1 was like that and nobody were hurt. If so, please tag me I want to see , as I am not often connected on the forum.