This 12 months 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 fully big splash worldwide. However with its fifth anniversary quick approaching, we’re certain a number of followers are champing on the bit for a brand new recreation.
So, in case you have been shopping 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 associates 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 apparently launching in February 2026, is not even attempting to cover the similarities it shares with Nintendo’s widespread life sim sequence. It guarantees to allow you to “Create your good anime life” by constructing “your dream residence” befriending animals, and occurring adventures. You possibly can go fishing, gather fossils, catch bugs, plant flowers, and craft gadgets. You possibly can even run your personal store and organise city occasions.
Okay, so there are some variations there — in any case, 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 every part you have to know.
The grass texture and character eye shapes take a heck of loads of notes from Animal Crossing, as do among 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 via the doorways?
However, as GVG highlights, there are different pink flags in just a few of the screenshots. Specifically, among the photos and characters appear like they’re AI-generated.
Take the picture on the left, under — on the suitable it seems like there is a grill or an oven, however there are issues on the “equipment” that completely don’t line up with our thought of an oven. The desk within the background, too, can be fully misshapen, with chairs and wooden that overlap each other.
Then, the picture on the suitable — we don’t know what that’s on the shelf on the suitable, however essentially the most obtrusive factor to note is the character’s eyes. They’re fully 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 may spot different gems like TCG Card Store Supervisor, Anime Ladies Army Strike, and Metropolis Bus Driving Simulator.
The truth is, we recognised just a few of the video games within the record above, and it simply so occurs that just a few of them are additionally on the Change eShop, albeit below completely different writer names.
Rainbow Ascend: Anime Ladies Go Up is printed by BurleaGamesStudio. World Warfare II Metropolis Rebirth Tycoon and Cyberpunk Velocity Murderer are each out there because of Tashlik. And SimulaMaker has introduced us delights corresponding to Pet Clinic Simulator and the aforementioned Anime Ladies Army Strike.
We’re solely scratching the floor right here — Restaurant Tycoon Simulator makes use of completely different thumbnails however the screenshots are an identical between the PSN web page and the eShop one, for instance. The sheer variety of them remains to be shocking 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 any case, and different examples corresponding to that Final of Us copycat and the Unpacking clone have all been taken down. However, as a warning, simply watch out on the market of us.
Thanks once more to Good Vibes Gaming for bringing this to our consideration!
