Developer HoYoverse is best known for its gacha RPGs Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, but for its next game, the studio is setting its sights on an entirely different genre. This time, it’s not only tackling the crowded life sim space, but also seemingly modeling its upcoming game after one of the titans of the genre — Animal Crossing.
HoYoverse recently announced Petit Planet, which it describes as “cosmic life simulation.” Most life sims stick players in a small town to explore, but in Petit Planet, each player has their own world to customize. And like Animal Crossing: New Horizons giving players the ability to visit their friends’ islands, Petit Planet eventually lets players travel to planets where they can interact with one another, once they’ve done sufficient work on their own homes.
What the game actually looks like in play is still a bit up in the air. Petit Planet’s debut trailer shows a cinematic version of what players will get up to in the game without showing any actual gameplay. But what’s been shown off should look extremely familiar to life sim fans with a few twists. In the trailer, the player character is seen decorating their home, including building roads and even changing the colors of flowers in the area. Characters are shown fishing, farming, and relaxing at a campsite, all of which would look right at home in Animal Crossing.
Petit Planet appears to have a major focus on relationships with both NPCs and other players. The trailer shows a character packing up their car and driving into space, where they can visit other planets. Some of these are home to the game’s anthropomorphic NPCs, but others appear to be the planets that other players have designed themselves. In the game’s announcement, HoYoverse puts a lot of emphasis on the community aspects. It also calls attention to an in-game area called the Galactic Bazaar, which serves as the game’s social hub for connecting with other players.
This being HoYoverse, the question of monetization is a big one. Traditionally, the developer’s games have been free to play but relied on players spending money to receive random characters and equipment through a gacha system. HoYoverse hasn’t said a word on whether Petit Planet will follow the same pattern, but it seems like a distinct possibility. The ways that a gacha system could be used as a way for players to acquire new recipes, furniture, or outfits are immediately apparent and the potential for that to trap players in a cycle of overspending seem frighteningly high. Just look to Infinity Nikki for how a cozy, cosmetic-focused gacha can go overboard with in-game purchases, and the ways that even the most devoted players have responded.
The announcement of Petit Planet also comes at a particularly interesting time. At a recent Nintendo Direct, the upcoming Switch 2 game Pokémon Pokopia was announced. This life sim spinoff of Pokémon casts players as a Ditto in human form, working with other Pokémon to build a new home in the wild. Not long after, Palworld developer Pocketpair announced its own life sim based on its Pokémon-inspired monster-catching game. Now we have yet another new game in the same genre, this time not based on any particular series, but made by a developer best known for its popular RPGs. While there are plenty of differences between each of these games, it’s clear that a lot of different studios are seeing the potential for a life sim to draw in more players, but if they end up being released around the same time, the competition between them could be fierce.