Summary
Animal Crossing: New Horizonscomes from one of the most famous Nintendo franchises, withAC’s relaxing yet exciting social simulation gameplay featured activities like fishing, farming, insect catching, and even fossil hunting. Its popularity and accessibility have inspired many developers to create similar open-ended social simulation games, like Singularity 6 Corporation’sPalia. UnlikeAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, this game is built to be played with a community of other players instead of a cast of NPCs. It’s something that the former could integrate into future games if it wants to truly evolve from its current format. There are a lot of elements fromPaliathat would work great forAnimal Crossing, except for one activity.
Animal Crossingwas initially released for theNintendo GameCubewith the premise of a human player doing all sorts of activities to pay off their house in a village with anthropomorphic animal residents. The player could do tasks that they usually do during their everyday lives, like going to the store, selling goods, and chatting with their neighbors. The game had events, like festivals, that one could attend to be more in touch with their newfound home. It also gave players the ability to contribute to the progress of the village by building houses, decorating the area, and getting more residents. Games likeStardew ValleyandPaliacan trace their roots to cozy games likeAnimal Crossing, but they contain elements that would be out of bounds for Nintendo’s wholesome franchise. In particular, hunting would simply not fit in the Nintendo series.
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Hunting Feels Right at Home in Palia, But it May Be Too Much for Animal Crossing
Paliafeels like a more grown-up version ofsocial simulation gameslikeAnimal CrossingandHarvest Moonbecause of its 3D graphics and more refined social elements, like the ability to woo NPC villagers. It also lets players hunt deer and rodent-like creatures called Sernuks and Chapaas for their meat and hides. It manages to make the process more PG by making the animals disappear when their health gets depleted, instead of leaving a corpse on the ground like other games do. As such, it keeps its 13+ rating.
Hunting is a great way to diversify the products that players can use, process, and sell. InPalia, players can use the meat for cooking HP-replenishing consumables. They can also useSernuk hidefor crafting and sell the items they create for gold. Despite its advantages, this feature just isn’t a good fit forAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsand its sequels, for one simple reason: the villagers the player lives with are animals themselves. Hunting land animals with similar features to the player’s neighbors just feels eerie, violent, and wrong, even if it is done in a “clean” way likePalia.
Other Palia Features That Animal Crossing Should Consider Adopting
Sure, there’sfishing in theAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, but there aren’t any villagers that are aquatic animals. Plus, the fish that one catches are often displayed in their aquariums, so they aren’t killed and butchered like inPalia. EvenStardew Valleydoesn’t have hunting elements, despite having a combat system that allows players to slay monsters in the mines.
Hunting is just too much forAnimal Crossing, but there are other great things that it can adapt fromPalia. The former could make its map as expansive as the latter’s.Animal Crossingplayers would appreciate more areas to explore, and even new islands to manage and populate.ACcould even adoptPalia’s aforementioned multiplayer features to make it easier for players to hang out and connect with their friends. While the small scale ofAnimal Crossingis part of its charm, some players may feel constrained. Plus, theSwitch has multiple open-world gamesthat makeAC’s world look even smaller. As such, having a more open and expansive world would be a breath of fresh air for both new and long-time fans of theAnimal Crossingfranchise. Hunting should probably be left out of that world, though.
Animal Crossing: New Horizonsis available now on the Nintendo Switch.
MORE:The Next Animal Crossing Desperately Needs This Quality of Life Feature From Palia
