Story of Seasons, once known as Harvest Moon, is one of the most classic farming simulators. It's been around for 26 years, and the game has shown that it can evolve to be more friendly to players. The upcoming Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life has same-sex marriage options and non-binary player character customization options added to a remake of one of its more well-known titles, for example. However, it is still missing online play.
That being said, while Story of Seasons was once one of the most well-known farming simulators, others have cropped up over the years to take a bit of its limelight. These games have proven to be more willing to adjust to the times than Story of Seasons has, such as Stardew Valley, which has taken advantage of the internet and technology today to offer multiplayer and co-op options.
What Stardew Valley and Farming Simulator Offer Players
Stardew Valley is made by indie developer ConcernedApe all by himself, which makes the scope of the game astounding with that in mind. While some content was added with additional updates, overall it was praised for blending the farming simulation genre with RPG elements without sacrificing its realistic undertones. Farming Simulator, meanwhile, aims to give players a taste of what real farm work is like from a first-person perspective with real tools and product management.
Farming Simulator 14 was the first to introduce multiplayer into the genre, but it may have been relatively overlooked in part to it being found on a mobile title. Farming Simulator 15 would mark the first time that a wider release would feature multiplayer, but Story of Seasons and Farming Simulator have different feelings to each other that makes them have mostly different audiences. Due to this, Stardew Valley and its clear Harvest Moon inspirations had an easier chance to shake things up with its 1.3 update, which added multiplayer. Despite the lack of other titles to go off of, ConcernedApe's forward-thinking helped the multiplayer modes shine with features like scaling profit margins to adjust to two or more players. This update has certainly played a key role at keeping Stardew's popularity even now.
Story of Seasons With Multiplayer Could Challenge the Competition
Story of Seasons was once considered one of the greatest farming simulators. Under the Harvest Moon name, classics like Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town were played by a rather loyal fan base. While the name change has played a part in the series' current popularity, some loyal fans have made the switch and have been playing almost every installment. These fans most likely have friends they've met through the series that they'd love to run a farm with.
If a Story of Seasons game that sticks to its classic formula had the ability to let players run a farm together, it could almost certainly shake up the current status quo with farming simulators. It could bring a few fans back to the franchise while also quite possibly stealing a few players back from Stardew Valley.
A game similar to A Wonderful Lifecould give Story of Seasons an advantage, as AWL has been praised for being one of the more laid back and easy to play farming simulators. Against a game like Stardew Valley, often dropped by players for being rather demanding of players' in-game time, a more relaxed yet similar game could be perfect to counter to the indie hit's popularity. It could end up grabbing the interest of those who put the game down in the past.
However, it's highly unlikely that a brand-new Story of Seasons game that relaxed will come out for quite some time. The original A Wonderful Life is getting a remake for the current generation that's set to release halfway through 2023, and it's highly unlikely that it will include any form of multiplayer. Even then, Story of Seasons has hardly made a game as relaxed as AWL in years, although the series as a whole is still rather relaxing. The franchise could still make strides by including some form of co-op play, and luckily the single player experiences are here until Story of Seasons is ready for that leap.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life will launch in summer 2023 for PC, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S.
