Highlights
- Animal Crossing has been a beloved social simulation game for years, and Nintendo constantly adds new features to keep each experience unique.
- Stardew Valley, a game similar to Animal Crossing, has caves that players can explore and gather resources from. Animal Crossing could benefit from incorporating a similar cave biome, adding a new section of the map to explore.
- Adding caves to Animal Crossing could introduce new exploration elements and potentially new creatures like bats. It could also enhance the fossil collecting aspect of the game, providing a more dynamic experience.
Animal Crossing has been a beloved addition to the social simulation genre since the early 2000s. Some of the best Animal Crossing games include Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Animal Crossing: Wild World. Each iteration of the series follows a tried and true formula, although through the years Nintendo has done its best to make sure each experience is unique. This includes adding new features to the game.
After the Harvest Moon-inspired Stardew Valley became an immediate overnight success in 2016, multiple games have come out modeled after the indie game. Animal Crossing is comparable to some degree to Stardew Valley, though it's much more open-ended than the farm simulator. Still, the two have quite a few shared qualities, and when Nintendo decides to release its next Animal Crossing game, it could draw inspiration from The Mines in Stardew Valley.
Animal Crossing Exploration Could Benefit From Locations Like Mines
Animal Crossing could continue giving its players different situations to navigate in its next game. While another title has yet to be announced, it's unlikely that the franchise will be abandoned after the massive success that Animal Crossing: New Horizons received. As such, the bar will be quite high for returning and new players alike.
While each game adds several new elements, none of the games have caves that can be traversed, like The Mines in Stardew Valley. The only caves that currently exist in the series are actually decorative items that were added to the game in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 update. If Nintendo opted to add a cave biome to the life simulation, it could mean a brand-new section of the map to explore.
In Stardew Valley, these caves are the perfect place to gather materials like gems, coal, and stones, while players typically must engage in battle against enemy NPCs to advance further into The Mines. Animal Crossing has no need to include combat in its games, but it could still borrow the idea of caves to work in its favor. When exploring these darker areas of the map, players could potentially run into harmful critters like the wasps that often fall from the trees, tarantulas, or scorpions. Villagers can't die from being bitten or stung by these enemies, but they should still be either avoided or captured with a net as they can set a person's progress back.
Perhaps caves in Animal Crossing could see a new creature like bats. Currently, there are no bats in the series though some people have campaigned for bat villagers to be added to the game. If bats were to be added, players would likely want to avoid them to continue walking around the caves.
Fossils are recurring collectibles in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that could be taken to the next level. In the 2020 game, players must dig around their islands to find the fossils. This doesn't need to be taken out of the next game entirely, but it could be interesting to make fossils available inside caves as well. There isn't a pickaxe currently in Animal Crossing likethe pickaxe in Disney Dreamlight Valley, but it could be a useful tool to include if players are going to be mining for fossils.
Adding more exploration elements to the Animal Crossing franchise could make the next title all the more compelling. This would also mean that fossil gathering is much more dynamic as there could be more than one way to find them. What Nintendo plans to do exactly with a sequel to Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still to be determined, but it could be exciting if it took more inspiration from other games.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now on Nintendo Switch.
