Summary
Animal Crossinghas become not only a staple of the cozy game genre but a staple of Nintendo’s roster of exclusive franchises.Animal Crossing: New Horizonshas been a smash hit for Nintendo, selling over 40 million copies and falling only behindMario Kart 8 Deluxein Switch game sales. While the long-running franchise has always found a way to change and innovate, the next entry in the series will face higher expectations than ever before. Cozy games are also more present than ever, so the game will face stiffer competition than previous entries have.Animal Crossingwill have to learn from the other games in the genre, and one key feature ofPaliacould be perfect for Nintendo to borrow from.
Paliais an upcoming MMO centered on life simulation. While many cozy games likeAnimal CrossingandStardew Valleyhave featured multiplayer modes, these modes have typically been limited in scope. While players canvisit their friend’s islands inAnimal Crossing:New Horizons, collaboration is largely limited to sharing fruits and designs or traveling to sell turnips for more bells elsewhere.Palia, on the other hand, is built from the ground up as a multiplayer experience. Players live in a shared world, and resource gathering and other activities are best completed with a group of friends. InPalia,collaboration is key.
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Palia’s Flow Trees Are A Game Changer
Palia’s focus on collaborative gameplay is best embodied by its flow trees. Some trees in the world are imbued with a magical ether; this magic makes the tree stronger and impossible for one player to cut down. Two or more players are needed to cut these trees, working together in real-time. While this mechanic best embodies the game’s approach to collaboration, certain recipes for cooking and crafting similarly require multiple people, either due to time constraints or the necessity for simultaneous completion of tasks.Paliais in beta, but it has already shown that the multiplayer functionality in other cozy games is woefully underutilized.
While the MMO nature ofPalianecessitates its focus on collaboration, it doesn’t mean that other cozy games outside the MMO space can’t learn from it.Multiplayer inAnimal Crossingis limited, so adopting some ofPalia’s collaborative tasks could give players more of a reason to play together. Visiting a friend’s island is fun, but it doesn’t take too long to run out of things to do.Animal Crossinghas a lot of room to implement the collaborative features that makePaliaspecial, and it could do so without ruining the single-player side of the game. Implementing such features would allowAnimal Crossingto thrive as a co-op game as well as a single-player one, pushing the franchise forward.
Animal Crossing Should Add Collaborative Tasks
The nextAnimal Crossinggame could borrow the idea behindPalia’s flow trees and present players with tasks that require aid from friends. This would give players more of a reason to play with the people they know and to do so more often. Furthermore,Animal Crossing’s iconic villagersfill its world and could be included in collaborative tasks. Usually, players complete errands for the villagers and are rewarded with items. An entry in the series with collaborative elements could allow the player to recruit villagers to help them complete these tasks. This would allow for people to play the game alone while forming deeper bonds with villagers. By limiting the amount villagers can do daily, Nintendo could still reward multiplayer collaboration without taking away from single-player.
The nextAnimal Crossinggame needs to take some notes fromPalia.Animal Crossing: New Horizonskept gamers together during self-isolation, so multiplayer is a big part of what fans love about the series now. WhileNew Horizons' multiplayer helped to make it a big hit with fans, it is limited in scope, and future entries will need to provide players with more to keep them engaged. Borrowing fromPalia’s flow trees and other collaborative elements would allow Nintendo to flesh out all aspects of theAnimal Crossingexperience and would keep fans coming back to the game.
