The upcoming 2.0 update to Animal Crossing: New Horizons is massive; it's so big that it almost feels like something of a sequel to the original game. One addition in particular is going to change New Horizons in a big way, and potentially impact future games in the series. Now that Animal Crossing is going to be introducing farming and cooking, it's taking one step closer to farming sims like Stardew Valley and the Harvest Moon series, which seems to be the proper direction for the franchise.
When Stardew Valley was released in 2016, it proved that the farming sim genre was still alive and well. The satisfaction found in doing virtual farm work was enough to entrance players into playing a game for, sometimes, hundreds of hours, by breathing new life into the Harvest Moon formula. Despite not featuring farming of any kind, Animal Crossing has frequently been compared to both series, but the 2.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons seems to be pushing the series even closer to farming sim comparisons.
Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley
The reason that so many comparisons are drawn between Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Stardew Valley is because both fall under the life sim genre and, aside from Animal Crossing's lack of farming, share similar gameplay goals. Both games are about getting to know neighbors while enjoying the simpler moments of life, as the surrounding town grows as a direct result of the player's actions. The two are distinct, however, because of where their individual focuses lie.
The Animal Crossing series is all about decoration and New Horizons brought that to the next level by allowing players to arrange furniture outside and make landscape changes. Stardew Valley, on the other hand, is focused on its farming and, while interior decoration certainly plays a part in the game, it's not a major focus. Now that New Horizons is adding farming, however, the game will inch that much closer to Stardew Valley's seemingly infinite replayability.
Animal Crossing and Farming
Animal Crossing seems like the kind of game that would feature farming based on the way that it treats the planting of flowers and trees, but the series never dived deep into farming simulation. Although the look at New Horizons' farming system was brief, the Animal Crossing Direct seemed to show that there's going to be quite some depth to the farming options available to the player. Plenty of different crops were displayed and the recipes shown off indicate that seasonal crops will be a continuous part of the game moving forward.
This is a great way to keep fans playing even after the content updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons stop coming. Stardew Valley has proven just how into farming games fans can get, and that seems to be bleeding into New Horizons. Hopefully, the farming aspects of Animal Crossing are as deep as they initially seem because, if they're not, then they won't sustain the game's player base. Sure, farming might be entertaining while fans explore the major changes coming with the 2.0 update, but if it doesn't have any complex systems working with it, then taking care of vegetables will just boil down to an alternate version of taking care of flowers.
The cooking that was shown off during the Animal Crossing Direct seems to suggest that there will be more to New Horizons' farming than just planting and watering seeds which is certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully, this means that farming is going to be playing a major part in the Animal Crossing series moving forward and that future games will be able to support players for even longer than New Horizons has done.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available on the Nintendo Switch.