I’ve been saying it for years: the only thing missing from Animal Crossing is rocket boots and superpowers.
Well, that’s not what I said – but now that I’ve seen it’s a thing, I’m quietly fascinated.
Floatopia is a free-to-play Animal Crossing game from NetEase Games that’s like a toy box life sim mixed with an anime style where the main character is a regular guy in a world with super powers.
Set to a real-life day and night cycle, just like in Animal Crossing, you can build a floating paradise – this time in the sky instead of a tropical island – build and decorate your house, fish and interact with the ever-turning Visitors interact, each with their own “useless superpowers.”
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Some, like the emotionally introverted Mystica, possess elemental powers over ice, while others have more practical quirks, such as the ability to grow plants super fast. There also appears to be a chibi police sergeant named Fluffy in a bulletproof vest, which is one of the funniest, tonally dissonant things I’ve ever seen.
They’re all peachy and fluffy, just like the forest family, and although I’ve seen a lot of people say they look a little scary from the trailer, in the game, the look of the toy box – your house opens up like a toy – It’s actually really good, with a lot of texture; a bit like “Pokémon Concierge”.
Apparently, in the world of Floatopia, these tourists pilot their island in the sky and will stop by your house whenever they’re in the area. Day after day, different islands will come into orbit around your central home, with new characters to meet and new items and materials to discover.
As a beat, it’s a very interesting concept, and I’m fascinated to see how much Floatopia has in common with Animal Crossing. From the brief demo I played at Gamescom 2024, there’s a similar interface, you can build furniture using resources scavenged on the island, you can move back and forth between shops, and participate in town activities with other citizens , and the soundtrack blasts the same brassy horns as New Horizons , but could it get any cheekier? Would there be a museum filled with bugs and art, just like the fish I’ve caught, chopped wood, and sucked rocks?
Thankfully, Floatopia is slightly different mechanically. Fishing is more complex than the 1-2-3 mini-games in Animal Crossing, but the biggest difference is the traversal, where your character flies around in rocket-powered boots, allowing you to fly from island to island. Because it’s Unreal Engine, Floatopia feels more open and interactive than Animal Crossing, with more seamless exploration and a larger vertical and distance perspective. You can swim in the water and jump over obstacles, but I wonder if that would be a good thing.
Animal Crossing New Horizons is almost better because of its limitations. Use your ladder to climb up cliffs, or take a long walk around your island to reach the only bridge that allows you to navigate the mundanity of island simulations. Rooted in the space, it makes you feel present and involved when walking in a relatively small space.
Since it’s more open and easier to move around, it’ll be interesting to see if you feel more constrained while playing Floatopia (even though it’s set in a larger space) and if the obstacles feel more artificial.
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people say they’re venturing back into their New Horizons islands and reveling in collecting all the moths, sea creatures, and spare parts they’ve picked up a hundred times. But I think this puts Floatopia in a really strong position, not in spite of its derivative tendencies, but because of them.
We see time and time again that large numbers of people want essentially the same things they have seen before, just slightly different. So while you could easily see Floatopia as an Animal Crossing clone on a scale we haven’t really seen yet with MySims, when Nintendo is happy to let you wait 8 years between sequels , new games are always sneaking ahead.
But for Floatopia, the cumulonimbus cloud of free-to-play monetization always looms in the distance. One of Animal Crossing’s greatest strengths is its egalitarian spirit, with free clothing patterns, celebrity meet-and-greets, and carrot-price parties all forming the cornerstone of a truly comfortable experience.
Floatopia seems to mimic the look and feel of Animal Crossing, but I’ll be watching carefully to see if it can capture that vibe as well.
You can pre-register on the Floatopia official website and get a “free island gift pack”.
