HANDS-ON: NetEase’s Floatopia feels prefer it might surpass Animal Crossing in a variety of methods

If there’s one sort of recreation we actually haven’t been wanting lately, it’s the life sim.

The continuing success of such collection as Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon has all the time ensured a gradual provide of comparable video games, nevertheless it actually does really feel just like the 2020s have seen a surge of them, usually with the newest buzzword ‘cosy’ hooked up.

Whereas most of those have come and gone with out inflicting tremors within the business, just a few have made their mark by providing one thing totally different (I’ll defend Disney Dreamlight Valley to the demise). NetEase‘s Floatopia will hope it lands within the latter class, and the half hour I spent with it at Gamescom suggests it simply would possibly.

Blink and also you’ll miss the surprisingly darkish premise. Whereas Animal Crossing has you merely transferring to a brand new village for a change of tempo, your relocation in Floatopia is one made out of necessity. The world is about to be destroyed, as per the intro, which briefly exhibits a metropolis being ravaged by earthquakes and tornadoes.

Realising that each cloud has a silver lining – on this case, one which’s actually within the clouds themselves – your character makes use of the planet’s imminent destruction as an excuse to flee to a floating island within the sky and begin a brand new, considerably extra chilled life there.

One of many twists that units Floatopia aside from different life sims is that everybody on the island will get a superpower. The issue is, superpowers are given out on a first-come, first-served foundation and so the preliminary villagers in your island moan that they got underwhelming ones.

One character makes the air chilly after they get emotional, one other has the ‘energy’ of insomnia and is subsequently all the time round regardless of whenever you’re wandering the island, whereas one other has the facility to suit any merchandise right into a perfectly-sized procuring bag. Guess the place she works.

The sport’s artwork fashion is charming, making use of a type of handcrafted look. The characters appear like your typical ‘chibi’ varieties from a distance however when the digicam zooms in on them (often throughout dialogue) you may see they’re all truly little fuzzy dolls with Sylvanian Households-style flocked hair and pores and skin.

This fashion extends to the buildings, which appear like they’re fabricated from cardboard. The store is a reasonably innocuous-looking constructing, however whenever you step inside it folds out to disclose a bigger inside, the place you may see the corrugated card within the partitions retaining every thing collectively.

“One character makes the air chilly after they get emotional, one other has the ‘energy’ of insomnia and is subsequently all the time round regardless of whenever you’re wandering the island”

The comparisons to Animal Crossing are inevitable, and may’t initially be ignored. In spite of everything, the sport opens with the participant being given a house and wandering across the village trying the place to position it, and early duties contain discovering recipes which inform you which supplies you’ll want to craft particular objects and furnishings.

There are many variations, nevertheless, that make Floatopia its personal recreation and provides it the potential to – whisper it – maybe surpass Nintendo’s title in sure methods. For starters, one of the crucial tedious points of Animal Crossing is the every day assortment of substances and objects by shaking bushes, selecting issues up and the like. Right here you’re rapidly given a mortgage of a vacuum cleaner which you should use to wander across the village, hoovering all of it up lots faster.

There’s a barely sillier really feel by the sport too, one which’s not completely restricted to the characters having garbage powers (although it ought to be identified that it appears to be like like you may get higher ones – the demo provides you the power to fly across the island at one level, which is relatively helpful and definitely not as dangerous as these of your fellow islanders).

The dialogue is pleasantly daft (and the participant may also select what to say again), and there’s a extra whimsical, fantasy-like vibe to proceedings. At one level you get up and discover that the insomniac character is sitting on a swing that’s hanging from the clouds, simply because. One other day it simply begins raining cash – whenever you ask what’s taking place you’re advised to not query it and simply embrace it.

The island setting – to not point out the underlying ‘the world is doomed’ component, can’t overlook that – additionally suggests extra selection to come back. The opening island is your typical idyllic, inexperienced paradise that bears greater than a robust resemblance to the world of Tom Nook and pals, however the recreation’s trailer exhibits the participant visiting different islands, similar to one made out of meals, and the developer guarantees there’ll be continuous updates including new environments to discover.

With this promise of future evolution, and an obvious heavier leaning in the direction of plot than you see in Animal Crossing, it appears like Floatopia has the potential to go in its personal course and construct its personal distinctive following. It’s already received the attraction nailed, let’s see the way it fares long-term.

Floatopia is about for launch in 2025 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Change, Xbox Collection X|S, PC and cellular.