PC Life by You (Paradox Interactive, Steam/EGS Early Access - 12 September 2023) - "The Sims Killer" open life simulator

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

FAQ - Paradox Interactive

WWW.PARADOXINTERACTIVE.COM

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Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

 

The Sims rival Life By You reveals its open world, dialogue trees, and third person mode

WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM

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The Sims' newest competitor Life By You revealed a ton of new details on how the game works, plus a release date.

 

 

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“Life by You evolves the life simulation genre with modern style, real language conversation, and unprecedented freedom of expression,” says Rod Humble. “The game’s extensive customization tools allow for unparalleled levels of storytelling, and I can’t wait to see what creations players come up with once they dive into Early Access this summer.”

 

The Creation Tools that Humble refers to seem quite extensive. Everything we know about The Sims 5 suggests that the game will have an innovative Workshop used for minute customisation, but it seems Life By You will beat it to release. From what we’ve seen, Life By You’s creator tools have cosmetic functions - like a colour wheel for objects - but you can customise under-the-hood scripts as well. This means you can change who can interact with a bin, for example, or you can change the outcome of taking those bins out.

 

This customisation extends to the in-game conversations that are using real-world language, not the longtime Simlish blubber. Each conversation will be affected by your not-Sim’s background and unique situations, but you can also script your own conversations too (see above.) I’m looking forward to the in-game spoofs that players create, although I’m sure there’ll be tons of original viral content as well.

 

Other big features include an open world with no loading screens and a third-person mode that’s been missing from Sims games since the DS/PS2 days - outside of mods. You can drag and drop your digital play dolls, or you can take control of them to drive and bike through the world. Of course, the core life-sim experience of raising a family, building a home, and climbing the career ladder is intact in Life By You. Although, this time around things sound more expansive as the game allows you to rearrange entire towns.

 

 

[crispy4000]

The last thing I’d want is a Sims-like by Paradox.  That’s going to be add-on DLC hell.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

The last thing I’d want is a Sims-like by Paradox.  That’s going to be add-on DLC hell.

 

Well The Sims is that too so it's a perfect fit really!

[CitizenVectron]

While Paradox loves DLC...even at their worst they are twice as good as EA (and cheaper). Sims 4 is just a grift, at this point (my wife plays it).

[TwinIon]

I'm mostly surprised that it took Paradox so long to get in on this genre. I'm pretty sure that the Sims games make bank, and that business model is right up Paradox's alley.

 

I personally don't have any interest in these games, but I'm sure competition will be good for those that do.

[legend]

I've never understood the appeal of The Sims.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Life By You says yes to sex mods and privacy, no to gender roles | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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We spoke to former Sims boss Rod Humble about his new life sim, which sounds like a platform more than a game.

 

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Later this year, Paradox will release a Sims competitor called Life By You, which is being developed under the leadership of former Sims studio head Rod Humble. It sure feels like Paradox is trying to repeat history here. Cities: Skylines was everything SimCity wasn't, and now Life By You promises to give Sims 4 players everything they've been asking for, and nothing they don't want.

 

Mainly, that means lots and lots of freedom to customize. Instead of grappling with unofficial tools for extracting Python scripts, Life By You modders will enjoy visual scripting tools directly in the game—some of the same tools that the Berkeley, California studio is using to build the game, and will use to make expansions in the future. 

 

The tools look powerful: Players can design custom jobs, social scenarios, conversations (the residents speak real languages, not gibberish), and more. There's an object editor, and support for importing custom 3D models and animations.

 

"If you want to make an expansion pack that's better than ours, go for it," Humble told me during a meeting at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. "The game is yours, and you don't need to ask anybody's permission to stream it, to do whatever it is you want with your creations. And that's the way that our business model is. We want to sell a life simulator that I think the community has been asking for for a long time. It's theirs, and we just want to pass it on to them."

 

 

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And because the opportunity to safely explore sexuality and identity is a big draw of life sims, according to Humble, Life By You won't include something that The Sims 4 does: telemetry, which refers to the transmission of anonymized gameplay data back to a developer for analysis. It's how EA is able to say that there were 289 million "WooHoos"(opens in new tab) last year across all the world's Sims 4 games.

 

"People around the world often use life sims to explore, for example, their sexuality," said Humble. "Like, hey, how would I feel to have kids, or to date a guy or a girl? So it's very important for this community, in this day and age, to know that this is a private experience. There's no in-game telemetry gathering data that could, for example, go to a hostile government."

 

I've never heard of in-game telemetry being used against someone by a government, but anonymization and data security are never perfect. If I were worried about the privacy of my in-game activities, I'd rather play a game that doesn't include any telemetry at all over one that does, even if I'm promised it's safe or given the option to turn it off. One point to Life By You.