‘Life By You’ cut “unfortunate” deaths due to COVID

Paradox has revealed that Life By You will not feature deaths by illness or other “unfortunate means”.

Set to launch in Early Access on September 12, Life By You will see strategy titan Paradox Interactive take on The Sims with its own life simulator.

However, while sickness is a feature in EA‘s Sims series, Paradox didn’t want Life By You players to lose their characters due to illness.

Speaking to GLHF, Paradox Tectonic head Rod Humble – ex-producer for The Sims – revealed that illness or “unfortunate means” will not be able to kill characters in Life By You.

“We actually removed all of that due to COVID,” shared Humble. “So we had the idea of sickness and death by unfortunate means, but it just didn’t really sit right. And it’s not that game. The game doesn’t come with any violence in it.”

Humble added that other adult themes like “nudity and romantic relationships” will remain in the game.

“That’s really more about the emphasis of that kind of storytelling, the important stuff,” the studio head explained. “I think there are a lot of games out there that already do violence and the dark side a lot better.”

“We’re also [a] life sim, and you can make grandma and your family,” added Humble. “We don’t want people to see horrible things happen to grandma. That’s not cool. So yeah, we’ve tried to make it as nice as we can.”

Though Life By You is still months away from launching in Early Access, Humble recently warned fans to take its PC system requirements seriously.

“If you’re going to play the game, you’re going to need a good gaming PC,” said Humble, who explained that Paradox may look to optimise the game further post-launch.