Disney Dreamlight Valley shares a lot of DNA with the Animal Crossing series, particularly 2020's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This Disney-themed life simulator sees players growing crops, catching fish, building furniture, and bonding with familiar faces ranging from Disney mascot Mickey Mouse to Encanto's Mirabel Madrigal. However, there is one area where Animal Crossing could instead learn from Disney Dreamlight Valley: a mechanic that allows characters to follow the player around and complete various tasks.
Disney Dreamlight Valley lets players "hang out" with most of the game's characters, and the character will follow the player around until dismissed. They can also help with certain tasks. Once a player reaches Friendship Level 2 with this character, they can choose one of five specialties: Foraging, Mining, Fishing, Gardening, or Digging. Initially, these roles could not be changed, but an update added craftable Training Manuals to Disney Dreamlight Valley that can teach new roles to the characters.
This Could Give Players' Favorite Animal Crossing Villagers More To Do
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has several hundred possible villagers who can live on the player's island, far more than Disney Dreamlight Valley's current dozen or so. Because the villagers are so numerous, finding a specific one and inviting them to the island can be quite a daunting task. In the case of certain popular villagers, such as Raymond the cat, it could be several months before an Animal Crossing player finally encounters them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a thriving "black market" popped up online as valuable villagers were sold and traded between players. S
Adding companion roles like Disney Dreamlight Valley to New Horizons or future Animal Crossing games could help this often difficult search have more of a payoff. With this system, players could spend time hanging out with their favorite villagers, instead of merely visiting them in their houses or sometimes talking to them when wandering around the island. Certain villagers could even be more suited to specific roles than others, like Athletic villagers using their strength to easily pick up large numbers of items.
Companion Roles Can Decrease The Animal Crossing Grind
Both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Disney Dreamlight Valley—and others in the genre such as Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons—are fairly "grind-heavy" games. Players must perform various tasks repeatedly for long periods of time if they wish to find enough building materials or catalog every fish and bug that can be found. The grind is especially notable during events, such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Egg Festival, where players must hunt down dozens of eggs hidden around the island.
Companion roles decrease the "grindy" nature of Disney Dreamlight Valley in a major way. The more time a player spends with a character, the better they get at their assigned role. A Disney Dreamlight Valley character with a friendship level of 10 will produce dozens of extra fish, crops, gemstones, or other materials each time they accompany a player. This is especially notable as it can help players "get rich quick" by rapidly farming items with high resell value such as Pumpkins.
Animal Crossing could easily reuse some of Disney Dreamlight Valley's specialties, such as Digging and Fishing, but could add some New Horizons-focused roles like bug catching or shooting down present-bearing balloons. The Training Manual "re-classing" system could be recreated via Blathers, the knowledgeable owl who runs the island's museum and would certainly want to help players find fish and bugs as quickly as possible. Perhaps players could turn in items to Blathers in exchange for changing villagers' companion roles, or perform tasks around the museum in exchange for "lessons" from the owl.
Unfortunately, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is unlikely to add a major content update that would introduce something like Dreamlight Valley's companion roles, but it is definitely something that could feature in a future Animal Crossing title.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is currently available for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.