Paradox Tectonic, the studio primarily focused on making The Sims competitor Life by You, has been shut down within hours of the game being cancelled abruptly this week.

Primarily based on Berkeley, California, the Paradox Tectonic studio employed 24 people since its inception back in 2019. Life by You was to be their debut title until it got delayed multiple times and most recently, canceled.

“This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who’ve worked hard on Life by You’s Early Access release,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “Sadly, with cancellation of their sole project we have to take the tough decision to close down the studio.

He added, “We are deeply grateful for their hard work in trying to take Paradox into a new genre.”

Originally announced back in 2023 and led by the creator of The Sims, Paradox Tectonic was expecting to ship Life by You in September of that year, only for it to be delayed to March 2024, then June, and then delayed indefinitely. About a month later the news broke of the game being unceremoniously canceled before it even launched.

“This was an incredibly difficult call to make and is a clear failure on Paradox’s part to meet both our own and the community’s expectations,” deputy CEO Mattias Lilja said.

The deputy CEO went on to say development on the game became “far too long and uncertain”, hence why another delay wasn’t accepted by Paradox Interactive proper. Lilja didn’t mention specifics but did say it was a mistake to let the game get so far into development before canceling it entirely.

“Games are difficult to get right, and we’ll definitely make mistakes, which, as these things go, always become painfully apparent in hindsight, but still shouldn’t reach this kind of magnitude regardless,” Lilja said. “We have to take a long and hard look at what led us here and see what changes we have to make to become better. In the end, our mission remains the same, and we’ll continue to take whatever steps we need to do just that.”