This yr marks 5 years for the reason that final mainline Animal Crossing recreation launched. Animal Crossing: New Horizons got here out on the good time and made a completely big splash worldwide. However with its fifth anniversary quick approaching, we’re certain plenty of followers are champing on the bit for a brand new recreation.
So, in case you have been searching the PlayStation Retailer over the weekend and thought you noticed an Animal Crossing gamer, no, your eyes weren’t enjoying tips on you. As our pals over at Good Vibes Gaming have identified, there is a recreation that appears an terrible lot like Animal Crossing on there.
Anime Life Sim, which is seemingly launching in February 2026, is not even attempting to cover the similarities it shares with Nintendo’s widespread life sim collection. It guarantees to allow you to “Create your good anime life” by constructing “your dream dwelling” befriending animals, and occurring adventures. You may go fishing, acquire fossils, catch bugs, plant flowers, and craft objects. You may even run your personal store and organise city occasions.
Okay, so there are some variations there — in spite of everything, Animal Crossing did not invent the life sim style. However we’re not speaking about gameplay, for essentially the most half; one look on the screenshots ought to inform you all the pieces it is advisable to know.
The grass texture and character eye shapes take a heck of lots of notes from Animal Crossing, as do a number of the animal residents. The wolf, bear, and moose villagers are extremely evocative of their AC equivalents — even when the moose has big antlers. How does it match by the doorways?
However, as GVG highlights, there are different pink flags in a couple of of the screenshots. Specifically, a number of the photos and characters appear to be they’re AI-generated.
Take the picture on the left, beneath — on the proper it appears like there is a grill or an oven, however there are issues on the “equipment” that completely don’t line up with our concept of an oven. The desk within the background, too, can also be utterly misshapen, with chairs and wooden that overlap each other.
Then, the picture on the proper — we do not know what that’s on the shelf on the proper, however essentially the most evident factor to note is the character’s eyes. They’re utterly completely different shapes.
Writer and developer Maksym Vysochanskyy buying and selling as IndieGames3000 (yep, that is the title) has a little bit of a repute for this sort of “asset flipping”. Just some months in the past, a Monster Hunter clone popped up on the PlayStation retailer. And in case you seek for them on PS Offers, you will spot different gems like TCG Card Store Supervisor, Anime Women Army Strike, and Metropolis Bus Driving Simulator.
Actually, we recognised a couple of of the video games within the record above, and it simply so occurs that a couple of of them are additionally on the Swap eShop, albeit underneath completely different writer names.
Rainbow Ascend: Anime Women Go Up is revealed by BurleaGamesStudio. World Battle II Metropolis Rebirth Tycoon and Cyberpunk Pace Murderer are each out there because of Tashlik. And SimulaMaker has introduced us delights reminiscent of Pet Clinic Simulator and the aforementioned Anime Women Army Strike.
We’re solely scratching the floor right here — Restaurant Tycoon Simulator makes use of completely different thumbnails however the screenshots are equivalent between the PSN web page and the eShop one, for instance. The sheer variety of them remains to be stunning to us.
We’re certain Anime Life Sim will not make its projected 2026 launch date — that Monster Hunter clone was pulled from PSN, in spite of everything, and different examples reminiscent of that Final of Us copycat and the Unpacking clone have all been taken down. However, as a warning, simply watch out on the market people.
Thanks once more to Good Vibes Gaming for bringing this to our consideration!