We study the Game of Life as a statistical system on an square lattice with periodic boundary conditions. Starting from a random initial configuration of density we investigate the relaxation of the density as well as the growth of spatial correlations with time. The asymptotic density relaxation is exponential with a characteristic time whose system size dependence follows a power law with before saturating at large system sizes to a constant . The correlation growth is characterized by a time-dependent correlation length that follows a power law with close to z before saturating at large times to a constant . We discuss the difficulty of determining the correlation length in the final ‘quiescent’ state of the system. The decay time towards the quiescent state is a random variable; we present simulational evidence as well as a heuristic argument indicating that for large L its distribution peaks at a value .