Jake Solomon, one of the designers behind the turn-based tactics games XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, left Firaxis Games in 2023 to start his own studio, Midsummer Studios. The team there was working on Burbank, a game he describes as a life sim combined with The Truman Show.

However, in a post on X, Solomon announced the studio will be closing its doors and Burbank has been canceled. Alongside the news, he shared an almost three-minute-long clip of the game in action.

“I believe people are storytellers,” Solomon explained. “I want them to share whatever stories and characters they can dream up. Burbank lets you do that. We have moments playing this game where characters come alive in a way we’ve never experienced. And for an old game developer like me, that’s special.”

He contextualized the clip by saying it’s still pre-alpha, and if I’m being honest, it definitely shows. Facial expressions look rough around the edges, animations are janky, and the UI is clearly unfinished.

Solomon also explained that the characters in Burbank “use AI for memory reasoning, and speech. That’s what lets you create anyone you want and drop them into any story you write.” However, he also explained that all of the art is created by artists, and that he “had no interest in replacing any developers with AI.”

Burbank isn’t the first life sim to be canceled recently. Paradox’s Life By You was canned in June 2024, after three early access delays, despite significant hype and interest. However, Paralives is another in the genre that is scheduled for an early access launch in May, and takes a lot of inspiration from The Sims.