Highlights
- HoYoverse’s new game resembles Animal Crossing, sparking speculation about what the developer has in store for its next title.
- Leaked footage shows a chibi-style character in a world reminiscent of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
- Fans are excited about the potential of a free-to-play Animal Crossing-inspired game from HoYoverse.
Leaked footage from a new HoYoverse game bares a striking resemblance to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing franchise. Rumors have been circulating that the Genshin Impact developer has been working on an Animal Crossing copycat for quite some time. Now, footage making the rounds online has only fueled the rumors even more, especially as HoYoverse seems to be offering up the perfect crossover. HoYoverse has kept viewers thoroughly engaged with Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, but this Animal Crossing parody – or so it seems – could be the icing on the proverbial cake.
Animal Crossing debuted in 2001 with an enhanced GameCube version of the Japanese video game Dobutsu no Mori, which literally translates to “Animal Forest.” From there, the franchise truly hooked its intended demographic with Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS. Due to the franchise’s rising popularity, Animal Crossing received three more follow-up games: Animal Crossing: City Folk, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the latter of which was the first title in the franchise to release on the Nintendo Switch.
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Footage from HoYoverse’s upcoming game appeared on Twitter, but the exact origins of the video cannot be determined. The minute-long clip shows a chibi-style character in Genshin Impact‘s classic art style traversing an open field to chop down trees. Many aspects of the game, even down to the chopping animation and crafting interface, seem to be directly inspired by Animal Crossing: New Horizons, specifically. Even the animation of showing off a crafted item at the workbench is identical to the supposed source material. The only difference, some viewers have noted, seems to be that HoYoverse’s version has a movable camera, whereas Animal Crossing‘s camera has always been fixed. In fact, there are a few Animal Crossing features that could be changed.
HoYoverse Could Outdo Nintendo With Its Own Version Of Animal Crossing
In fact, many comments seem to be sold on the camera mechanism alone. Naturally, the game looks a little clunky in its early stages and far from polished by any means, but if it follows the same format as HoYoverse’s other properties, it would presumably be a like-minded free-to-play game which would already put it ahead of Animal Crossing in one crucial area. It isn’t a secret that Nintendo charges a hefty price for the latest Animal Crossing game, so as inflation continues to impact numerous countries around the world, the prospect of a free Animal Crossing doppelganger is hard to resist.
Fans who have stayed, and will continue to stay, loyal to Nintendo all these years must be asking themselves whether the multi-billion-dollar company will phone it in on the next Animal Crossing if HoYoverse goes the full mile with this prototype. Hopefully, that isn’t the case. But as Nintendo continues to turn a profit with other franchises that aren’t at such high risk of being overthrown as Animal Crossing, like Mario and Zelda, the possibility is always looming.
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HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
Based in Shanghai, China, miHoYo is a development company best known for creating Genshin Impact and the Honkai series.
- Date Founded
- February 13, 2019
- Headquarters
- Shanghai, China
- CEO
- Liu Wei