Animal Crossing is a laid-back franchise focused on letting the player live the life of a villager in a town full of animals. It is a relaxing game that allows you to do whatever you want with your time. Since New Horizons’ release, millions of people have put hundreds of hours into their islands, but what about if you want to try something a little different, yet similar? Here are the ten best games you can play right now that are like Animal Crossing, sorted alphabetically.
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The best games similar to Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Cozy Grove
Cozy Grove has you playing as a spirit scout, camping on a haunted island as you try to soothe the restless ghosts that reside there. You will dive deep into the backgrounds of each ghost you encounter while also doing the usual fishing, decorating, and crafting. This game prides itself on being inspired by Animal Crossing and sports a gorgeous hand-drawn art style that should pull you in.
Disney Dreamlight Valley
Disney Dreamlight Valley has you interact and help a community of Disney and Pixar characters who have lost their memories since their previous ruler left. You will do some cooking, gardening, fishing, and more as you help each character out with their quests and rebuild the valley back to its former glory days. Bringing together everyone who has left is some of the best fun in this game. You get to interact with characters like Mickey Mouse, Ariel, Moana, Wall-E, and more of your favorite characters from Disney and Pixar movies.
Doraemon Story of Seasons
Doraemon is a popular Japanese franchise that made its debut in American video games with Doraemon Story of Seasons in 2019. Typically, Story of Seasons is your traditional farming simulation game already. You get to plow and plant fields, raise livestock, go fishing, decorate your home, and capture insects. While playing, you unlock gadgets from Doraemon that gives you access to features like controlling the weather and fast travel. Like other games on this list, interacting with the villagers nearby and forging relationships with them is at the core of this game’s charm.
Garden Paws
In Garden Paws, you play as a small animal creature who has just inherited their grandparents’ farmland. While you will be doing plenty of farming and focusing on shaping up your new land, you will also be putting work into expanding the nearby village to bring new upgrades, shops, and areas to explore to the area. This little indie game has a lot going for it: Twitch integration, multiplayer, home building, and much more.
Little Dragons Café
Made by the same designer as Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon, Little Dragons Café follows a twin brother and sister learning to manage their mother’s café. When their mother becomes ill, they have to juggle raising a dragon and managing the café to save her life. As your dragon grows, you can see new areas with them to collect ingredients and recipes by hunting and exploring the outside world. If you are looking for a relaxing game to get lost in, this is one of the better choices.
My Time at Portia
My Time at Portia is a game set after human civilization has fallen, and humans are beginning to rebuild their lives. Your job is to collect resources and build items to help remake society in Portia. As you progress and get better equipment, you will dive deep into mines and dungeons to get the resources to help expand your workshop and farmland. Along the way, you will interact with plenty of charming villagers and become part of the Portia community.
Ooblets
Ooblets is a farming game that has you grow and train little creatures to dance and perk up everyone’s mood. The game sells itself on its odd situation and weirdness, but that is where a large part of the charm here comes from. You can design your house, help the mayor save the town, and keep training your Ooblets to participate in and win dance battles against other trainers.
The Sims 4
The Sims is the original real-life simulation series that continues to be beloved today. You create your person or family and control their everyday life. Reaching their goals, meeting new sims, and much more are available alongside the numerous DLC content packs and expansions available for you to tailor the way you want to play. Whether you play it the way it was meant to be played or use cheats, this series has an immeasurable amount of replayability for you, setting you as the overall ruler of your household. If you are interested in changing the game up, there is also a rampant community that focuses on mods to alter the experience to your preference.
Slime Rancher
This first-person open-world game has you take control of a ranch designed to raise slimes on an alien planet. Your main objective is to build your slime community and gain the money to upgrade your equipment to continuously better your ranch. You will need to grow crops and combine slimes to get the most cash for your efforts to acquire better upgrades and explore the dangerous areas outside of your ranch. Like Animal Crossing, this game really does not have an end goal, just keep playing and enjoying what you have built.
Stardew Valley
On the surface, Stardew Valley looks like a simple farming game. A closer glance reveals a deep game with RPG mechanics, relationships, and much more. Like so many other games on this list, you inherit a farmhouse and begin cleaning up and rebuilding it to its former glory days. You will interact with the community around you, build relationships, and potentially marry someone and start a family. There is a lot more to this game, though. Fishing, mining, gathering artifacts for a museum, and fighting back against the encroaching corporation taking over the area are just some of the ways you will spend your time here.
Published: Sep 20, 2022 05:01 pm