Summary
TheAnimal Crossingseries has always been about building a cozy life in a town filled with animal villagers, and as such, has lent itself to a style of gameplay that is very open-ended without a real plot to speak of. This design philosophy allowedAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsto offer players an unprecedented amount of creative freedom when it came to designing their perfect island life. However, a futureAnimal Crossinggame could refine its scope and trade the open-ended gameplay of the series for one that focuses on a true narrative while maintaining the cozy life sim elements fans have come to love.
One of the maincritiques ofAnimal Crossing: New Horizonswas the lack of interesting villager personalities, which had been a mainstay of the franchise that fans had come to expect. TheAnimal Crossingseries could overhaul the identities of villagers and deepen their characters by having them play a role in a more cohesive story told in a future title. With the wide cast of fan-favorite characters contained within the series, it’s surprising thatAnimal Crossinghas never developed a game with a dedicated narrative.
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How the Animal Crossing Series Could Incorporate a Story Mode
While the series may not want to stray too far from its core open-ended gameplay, there are a variety of ways afutureAnimal Crossinggamecould include a more distinct narrative. Other games have incorporated elements of different genres in a life sim game that tells a cohesive story while still giving players the freedom and creativity to build the kind of in-game life they want.Animal Crossingcould look to these games as inspiration when designing a new entry that tells its own unique story using the series' established world and characters.
Animal Crossing Could Follow in Stardew Valley’s Footsteps
Arguably, the two biggest games in the life sim genre,Animal Crossing: New HorizonsandStardew Valley, share a lot of similarities. However, one area in which they differ is the way they present in-game goals and objectives, withStardew Valleycontaining more narrative elements surrounding the rebuilding of Pelican Town’s Community Center versus expanding JojaMart’s presence in the town. While this is a relatively simple plot, it’s an effective way of giving players a path to follow when building their farms, and a futureAnimal Crossinggame has all the tools necessary to make a narrative like this happen.
Animal Crossing Could Incorporate RPG Elements
AlthoughAnimal Crossinghas always been billed as a peaceful series, the inclusion of characters like Villager and Isabelle in theSuper Smash Bros. series shows that the franchise has the potential to be more violent. As such, a futureAnimal Crossinggame could incorporate RPG elements similar to games likeHarvestellaand theRune Factoryseries. While this style of gameplay could limit the creative freedom ofAnimal Crossingplayers, it might also serve to refresh the gameplay of the series by splitting in-game activities between the life sim elements and the RPG elements.
Players often use their creativity todesign islands inAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsaround a theme or story, but the characters and themes already present in the series warrant an original story told by the series itself. This type of game doesn’t necessarily have to be a mainlineAnimal Crossingtitle, since a game likeAnimal Crossing: Happy Home Designerhas shown that a spin-off game can lean into one aspect of the franchise and still be successful. However, with the greaterAnimal Crossingseries in need of fresh new ideas to keep gameplay interesting, taking a page out of other entries in the genre and designing a cohesive narrative may be the way to go.
