The game I would’ve murdered for when I was eight years old is finally happening. Today, the much be-drama’d Disney announced Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new collaboration with mobile game developer Gameloft. The game appears to be a life simulator with a hefty amount of narrative story arcs tied in. You play as an avatar that’s basically… well, you. What’s more, the game will be free to play.
The conceit of Disney Dreamlight Valley truly reads as a hybrid of Animal Crossing and Kingdom Hearts. There has been a cryptic event called The Forgetting which has caused the Disney and Pixar characters living in Dreamlight Valley to retreat to their own realms. Now you, some kind and random person, must go into these realms to save these characters and restore their memories. Once you save them, they’ll move back to Dreamlight Valley, where they’ll essentially act like villagers in Animal Crossing. However, each individual character will have a story arc and quest line. So that’s pretty neat.
When I began watching the trailer, my initial thought was, “Wait, doesn’t a game in which the various Disney worlds are threatened by darkness already exist? Isn’t that Kingdom Hearts?” But there shall be no Keyblade-swinging in Dreamlight Valley. Or combat of any kind. According to IGN’s in-depth look into gameplay, there will, however, be a pickaxe. The tasks in Dreamlight Valley are non-violent and cozily mundane, such as using the aforementioned pickaxe to help Wall-E destroy debris.
Everything else about this game just reeks of Animal Crossing, to an honestly suspicious degree. You can upgrade and decorate your home. You can try on different outfits and cosmetics. You can go fishing and do some gardening, and then cook with the ingredients you’ve gathered. You can make items (including furniture and roads, it seems) via crafting recipes. The store where you can buy new furniture apparently shares a strong resemblance with Nook’s Cranny. Like… this game is just Animal Crossing, but with Disney characters. And a restaurant in your town instead of a café. And seemingly more involved and intractable story lines with your villagers. Who, in this case, include Remy from Ratatouille and Goofy.
Each character will have their own house and their own soundtracks. As a surprising bonus, IGN reports that the game’s dialogue is largely voice-acted. The actors involved are either soundalikes or—in Goofy’s case, for example—the real deal. Whether or not Patton Oswalt will reprise his role as the aforementioned Remy remains to be seen.
Apparently, there will be four realms at the game’s early-access launch this summer. The two that have been announced are Wall-E and Moana, though everything in the trailer points to a Frozen one as well. (That cannot possibly come as a surprise to anyone.) Disney Dreamlight Valley’s proper launch will be on 2023, and it will be available for literally everything: PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox, Mac, and PC. You can snag your place in the early launch by buying a Founder’s Pack through Xbox. Aha – there’s the real-world money!
featured image: Disney/Gameloft
Published: Apr 27, 2022 03:59 pm