To me, the Animal Crossing style of life simulation gameplay is one I enjoy, even if I may not completely understand why I’d sink dozens or hundreds of hours into its village-building experience. Sure, I enjoy the likes of The Sims, where creation is first and foremost. But balancing odd jobs, characters that are mere reskins of the same base animal, and interactions that come from a library of pre-determined responses should theoretically have been a snoozefest for me. Perhaps with how busy things can be in our lives, getting to enjoy a relatively demand-free, leisurely virtual life is one we all need? Invading into the space almost exclusively held by Animal Crossing, in the latter half of last year, was Disney Dreamlight Valley, a game developed and published by Gameloft, whilst licensed by and using a range of intellectual IPs from Disney and Pixar. Having launched a few months back, over the summer holiday period I found myself drawn into this new life simulation game, and despite some teething problems a la Early Access, it proved to be a competently designed game that kept me occupied for around two dozen hours so far.
Similar to Nintendo’s offering, Disney Dreamlight Valley is designed to be accessible, having a charm that would be appealing to younger audiences seeking to virtually meet and live alongside their favourite Disney characters, but perhaps even more so for older gamers – offering a somewhat Kingdom Hearts-esque narrative about encroaching darkness and visiting other worlds, alongside a solid range of development tools to build your valley exactly how you like. You start the game by being quickly introduced to a character editor. While one would expect the game to be like Disneyland Adventures where you create a childlike character, you are instead presented with a satisfying number of options to create a more adult-like character, albeit one with a more youthful charm to them. It sets the tone, that this isn’t just going to be another game aimed at children. From there you’re whisked away to the titular valley, fallen afoul of a curse known as ‘The Forgettening’ and ravaged by a blight known as ‘Night Thorns’ for an unspecified amount of time. With only Merlin, Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Scrooge McDuck remaining – you embark on a mission to restore the valley to its former glory.
At least for the first dozen or two hours, Disney Dreamlight Valley is very mission-based, including story missions, unlockable missions that take place in different Disney/Pixar worlds to invite other characters to your village, and also individual character missions which can unlock boons or upgrades to your key tools. The main story missions are competently designed, unlocked as you remove large night thorns blocking other parts of the Valley / Biomes, and serve as the start to an appealing albeit simplistic narrative. Visiting other Disney/Pixar worlds is definitely one of the bigger drawcards to Disney Dreamlight Valley, and they are a mixed bag. The level designs are often small, but have some fun-themed quests, even if they fall into the usual tropes. Finally, the character missions are plentiful and unlocked as you increase your friendship with each character, and are your typical collect-a-thon / craft-a-thon tasks taking you across the island. Many of the quests are bite-sized, perhaps contributing to the more casual nature of the game, and for the most part, do develop the characters nicely and are not overly time-intrusive. There are only a few instances of missions that require a respawn rate or wait time of more than 30 minutes, if at all.
Outside completing missions, you are mostly left to your own devices about how you pass the time – with the typical gameplay loops on offer being comparable to Animal Crossing. You can fish, you can explore the island for constantly spawning mining spots / growables, form a bit of a green finger with a range of seeds to plant and flowers to collect, and cook and craft your collectibles. Furthermore, with this being a village simulation game, you have plenty of opportunities to collect (as of writing) about 1,000+ pieces of furniture to decorate your house and the village at large – many of which are adapted from different Disney franchises. The furnishing/placement tools are easy to grasp, but I will admit I would have preferred a little more variety of furniture that wasn’t themed around a Disney franchise – the styles clashed a bit more than I cared for, even if they were for the most part well designed. The same can be said about the housing designs for each character. While the only limit to them being placed is by how many characters you can invite to the village, outside of the Mickey Mouse & Friends group, the designs clash a bit too much – even those in similar franchises such as Buzz and Woody from Pixar’s Toy Story.
With a history as extensive as Disney and Pixar, choosing what characters to initially have represented in the game would have been a difficult one. For the most part, I think Gameloft made some smart decisions – initially starting with Mickey Mouse & Friends (+ Scrooge McDuck as a Tom Nook figure), before expanding to a range of franchises such as Ratatouille (Remy), Moana (Moana and Maui) and Wall-E (Wall-E). Frozen probably has the best representation, with Kristoff being unlocked early on with Anna and Elsa also brought across, with The Little Mermaid also getting the trio of Ursula, followed by Ariel and Prince Eric who are unlockable via quests. What I do appreciate is that it isn’t always the protagonists appearing in your village, with The Lion King’s Scar and Tangled’s Mother Gothel appearing despite Simba and Rapunzel not being in-game as of writing. Even if they don’t fill antagonistic roles per ce, it sets a different tone towards the character missions they give you – and I would argue are some of the better-written ones.
My main concern about the game is Gameloft’s plans of monetisation, or rather, the lack of information around it. Early Access to Disney Dreamlight Valley requires either a standalone purchase of a Founder’s Pack or an Xbox Game Pass subscription. With this, you get some in-game goodies, some premium ‘Moonstones’ currency to dabble with and pretty much no means of paying for additional items at this point. But while you have ample currency for the game’s Star Path ‘season pass’, energy is easily replenishable, and each of the game’s main currencies is in plentiful supply, I can’t help but wonder how monetization will be implemented at a later date. While they have fortunately confirmed that they will not monetize any core gameplay mechanics which alleviates some concern, as highlighted below:
Disney Dreamlight Valley will not monetize any core gameplay mechanics. There are no paywalls and no “pay-to-win” mechanics. For example, you will not be able to pay to make your garden grow faster, increase or refresh your energy, increase your character friendship level, etc. Cosmetic items that are not tied to the game progression will be available for purchase with Moonstones. However, Moonstones can be earned for free in the game without needing to purchase additional Moonstones with real money.
and that
After Early Access, we have plans to add paid expansions that will add significant content to the game. These optional expansions will add new content to the base game. However, we are currently focusing on delivering a great and complete gameplay experience first.
I am left wondering whether you only get access to base characters present in Early Access, and that most if not all future update content / new characters / new worlds will be behind a paywall. It is too soon to tell, but I think it is a reasonable concern until specifics have been outlined.
Granted the game is still in early access, but the Dreamlight Valley is not free of bugs either. On the Xbox Series X native version of Disney Dreamlight Valley, crashes occurred on a semi-regular basis performing standard tasks such as talking to characters, requiring a full game reset. Furthermore, time-skipping is possible but highly discouraged, as going back in time will hamper any resource generation until you catch up to the latest time you skipped to.
Overall, Disney Dreamlight Valley is an enjoyable early access life simulation game, that has an appeal outside the youth-oriented audience of many Disney video game adaptations. It is easy to spend a few hours at a time doing random tasks and enjoying the audio-visual splendour of the valley. For those who don’t have the funds to purchase the game, don’t fret, as its free-to-play release is coming this year, although we still need to hear more about their monetisation plans to ensure staying in Dreamlight Valley is a good, long-term way of spending our time.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is now available as part of a paid Early Access program on a plethora of platforms, including the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. This review was conducted on the Xbox Series X version.
