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I’ve been saying it for years: the only things Animal Crossing is missing are rocket boots and superpowers.
Okay, I’ve not been saying that – but now that I’ve seen it’s a thing, I’m quietly obsessed.
Floatopia, a free-to-play Animal Crossing-like from NetEase Games, is like a toybox life sim crossed with that anime trope where the protagonist is the one normal person in a world of superpowers.
Set to a real-life day/night time cycle like Animal Crossing, you build a floating paradise – this time in the sky instead of a tropical island – building and decorating your house, fishing and interacting with a constantly rotating cast of visitors, each with their own “useless superpowers”.
Some, like the emo introvert Mistika, have the elemental power to control ice, while others have more practical quirks like the ability to grow plants super quickly. There also looks to be a chibi sheriff in a bullet-proof vest called Fluffy, which is one of the most hilariously tonally dissonant things I’ve ever seen.
They’re all peachy and fuzzy like Sylvanian Families, and even though I’ve seen a lot of people say they look vaguely terrifying from the trailer, in-game the toy box look – where your house opens out like a playset – is actually really nice with a lot of texture; sort of like Pokemon Concierge.
Apparently, in the world of Floatopia these visitors pilot their islands through the skies, pitching up next to your home whenever they’re in the area. Day-by-day, different islands will come into orbit around your central homestead with new characters to meet and new items and materials to discover.
As a cadence it’s a really intriguing concept, and I’m fascinated to see just how much Floatopia shares with Animal Crossing. From the short demo I’ve played at Gamescom 2024, there’s a similar interface where you build furniture from resources scrounged across your island, you mosey back-and-forth between the shop and take part in town events with other citizens, and the soundtrack parps out the same brassy horns as New Horizons, but how much more brazen can it get? Will there be a museum to fill with bugs and art, just as I’ve already landed fish, chopped logs and hoovered up stones?
Mechanically, Floatopia is – thankfully – slightly different. Fishing is more involved than the 1-2-3 mini-game in Animal Crossing, but the biggest difference is traversal, where your character jets around with rocket-powered boots which send you soaring from island-to-island. Because it’s Unreal Engine, Floatopia feels more open and interactive than the full-fat Animal Crossing, with more seamless exploration and greater sense of verticality and distant perspective. You can swim in the water and jump over blockages, but I wonder if that will end up being a good thing.
Animal Crossing New Horizons was almost made better by its constraints, with the clunk of whipping out your ladder to scale a cliff or going the long way around your island to get to the only bridge grounding you in the mundanity of your island simulation and making you feel present and engaged in making your way around a relatively small space.
Since it’s more open and easier to get around, it will be interesting to see if you feel more penned in while playing Floatopia, even if it’s set in a larger space, and if the barriers feel more artificial.
Recently, I’ve heard a lot of people say they’re taking the plunge and restarting their island in New Horizons and revelling in recollecting all of the moths, sea creatures and spare parts they’ve already picked up 100 times. But I think that puts Floatopia in a really strong place, not in spite of its derivative tendencies, but because of them.
We’ve seen time and again that a huge amount of people want basically the same as what they’ve seen before, just with slight differences. So while you can quite easily peg Floatopia as an Animal Crossing clone on a scale we’ve not really seen MySims, when Nintendo is quite happy to leave you hanging for 8 years between sequels new games were always going to steal in to scoop up that demand (just like Palworld did for a Pokemon-esque survival game).
But with Floatopia, there’s always the cumulonimbus storm cloud of free-to-play monetisation lingering in the distance. One of Animal Crossing New Horizons’ biggest strengths was its egalitarian spirit, with free clothes patterns, star piece meet ups and turnip price parties all forming the bedrock of a truly cosy experience.
Floatopia seems to have emulated the look and feel of Animal Crossing, but I’ll be watching intently to see if it can nail the vibe as well.
You can pre register for Floatopia, and receive a “free island gift pack”, at its official site.