On Monday, Paradox Interactive announced it was canceling the development of its people simulation game Life by You. Today, the publisher confirmed that it will also be shutting down its in-house development studio, Paradox Tectonic, which was formed specifically to create the game.
In a press release, the publisher stated Paradox Tectonic, which was launched in 2019 in Berkeley, California, employed 24 team members. They will all now be seeking other employment. The press release included a statement from Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive:
This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who’ve worked hard on Life by You’s Early Access release. Sadly, with cancellation of their sole project we have to take the tough decision to close down the studio. We are deeply grateful for their hard work in trying to take Paradox into a new genre,
Paradox announced its competitor to Electronic Arts' The Sims, Life by You, with much fanfare in March 2023. It even got Rod Humble, who previously led development on The Sims, to be in charge of the game and the Tectonic studio.
However, Paradox kept pushing back the release of the game, even in Early Access, over the past year and a half. On Monday, the publisher decided to cancel the game entirely. In its statement, Paradox said it looked at the game's development and decided that adding more time "will not get us close enough to a version we would be satisfied with."
This has decidedly not been a great year for Paradox. In the fall of 2023, the launch of the turn-based tactical game The Lamplighters League was a major sales failure and led to the publisher breaking off its ties with its formerly owned studio Hairbrained Schemes. Also, the PC launch of Cities: Skylines II was filled with technical issues. Paradox has still not announced when the promised console versions of the game will be released.
In their announcement for the cancelation of Life By You, Paradox admitted that the mistakes that led to the decision to shut down its development "shouldn’t reach this kind of magnitude". It added that it will now "take a long and hard look at what led us here and see what changes we have to make to become better."
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