Life by You's devs are keen to let you know that the June early access launch is for real this time
The announcement came within hours of fellow Sims rival inZOI tentatively revealing a late 2024 early access window.
The team over at Paradox Tectonic has announced that its upcoming life simulator Life by You will be launching into Early Access on June 4 this year — and, if that sounds like something you've heard before, it's because we've actually known the date for a couple of months already!
If you're wondering why a studio would go out of their way to re-announce something it already said — and relatively recently, too — the answer lies between the lines of the press release. What they've actually said is that "Life by You is ready for early access" (emphasis mine), and the intention is probably to differentiate this from the last two early access releases for the game, which caught delays.
The highly touted Sims-alike was originally announced in March 2023 for a mid-September early access release the same year, only to be pushed back to March 2024 at the end of July. Then that March date was put back again to June 4 in early February of this year. Both of these delay announcements came around five or six weeks before the intended launch which — oh look, is just about where we are now! So, it seems like Paradox Tectonic just wants to reaffirm that we should keep that date seriously cleared on our calendars, after its last couple of rain checks.
Life by You is being helmed by Rod Humble, former executive producer on The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. The open-world title clearly draws heavily on the latter — which many fans consider to be the high point of the Sims franchise — but with an even greater emphasis on player customisation. It's hotly anticipated by fans of EA's life sim giant, many of whom would like to see the thus-far-uncontested blockbuster of the genre get a dose of healthy competition as it approaches its quarter-century anniversary of absolute domination.
And if you count yourself among that number, you're in luck. On the same day that Life by You set out to reaffirm its release plans, Krafton — the South Korean studio behind PUBG — announced that its own Sims rival, inZOI, is also targeting an early access release for "late 2024". In a market so far defined by American-centric takes on the life sim genre, inZOI is definitely one to watch — and between it, LbY, the 2025 early access window for Paralives, and the assurance that work on Project Rene (a.k.a. The Sims 5) is advancing apace, 2024-5 is shaping up to be a very fruitful couple of years indeed for life sim fans.