So the Sims 5 was only in development because of that one competitor that recently got cancelled?
Life By You, published by Paradox was cancelled, for some undisclosed reason, not even to the developers themselves it seems. It was supposed to be close to release.
There are other life sim projects in progress (the indie Paralives I think is the one gathering attention right now).
All the footage we’ve ever seen of it was very frame-y, so I just assumed it was a technical mess that couldn’t be saved.