Disney Dreamlight Valley has an eye-catching new gameplayer trailer, offering a glimpse at some of the activities this Animal-Crossing-a-like will offer.
As it turns out, everything’s not hunky-dory in Disneylan.. er, Dreamlight Valley. Something called “The Forgetting” has all but ruined the land; houses are run down, places are overgrown with thorns. It’s your job to help sort this mess out and also a convenient reason why you can’t waltz in and chat to every single inordinately cheery Disney character.
Dreamlight Valley will see you completing mini-quests for a range of recognisable Disney characters, roaming around a wealth of familiar Disney locations . You can make friends with villains such as The Little Mermaid’s Ursula and, while developer GameLoft hasn’t revealed the full list of characters, the game mines a number of properties.
Merlin, for example, who features in 1985’s The Black Cauldron puts in an appearance. There’s also Wall-E, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Donald Duck, Goofy, Ariel and a few others. Aside from interacting with these Disney favourites, you’ll be furnishing your own home, dressing up your character, gardening fishing, and having lots of fantastic Disney fun!
At least, that’s how the trailer presents it. There are a couple of things we’re wary of, however. Firstly, while the game is set to contain in-game currency – GameLoft/Disney will be “selling special Founder’s Packs for the game”, the trailer makes no mention of it. Going by the trailer you’d think this was just a lovely Disney life sim you can purchase and enjoy.
Secondly, the trailer makes a lot of fuss of being yourself, and so on. That makes us wonder – just how gay can you be in-game? Disney has a complicated history in that regard so we’ll be curious to see how – if at all – the company will react when someone uses flowers to make a Transgender Pride Flag on their lawn.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is coming to Nintendo Switch, PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation and Xbox. The game will launch into Early Access this September 6th, though you’ll need to have Xbox Game Pass or pay real money for a Founder’s Pack to access it. Or, if you can wait, it’ll receive a full free-to-play release in 2023.
