Over the past two decades, Animal Crossing has become a flagship title for Nintendo, inspiring tons of games like Animal Crossing. The series is best known for its lovable animal villagers, peaceful daily chores, and tons of decorations to design not only a perfect home, but a perfect island. Fans of Animal Crossing really connect with the different villagers who can live in their town and the amount of customization you can do.
Animal Crossing exists with one foot in two different genres. It exists in the life-sim genre with games like The Sims, focused on relationships with NPCs and house decorations, while also existing in the management-sim genre, with your island needing to be maintained and improved upon over time. It also shares some DNA with many of the different farming-simulator games, despite the series only featuring the lightest farming mechanics.
Because Animal Crossing is such a specific type of game, our recommendations for games like Animal Crossing have at least one, if not all three, of the following aspects: villagers/NPCs to befriend (and maybe more), an island/town to maintain and decorate, and cozy vibes. Most of these games are also simulation games in one way or another, whether it just be life in general or running a business of some sort. These games span numerous platforms and may have some overlap for our recommendations on the best Switch games, PS5 games, PC games, and Xbox games.
Stardew Valley
- Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile
- Developer: ConcernedApe
- Similarities to Animal Crossing: Lovable villagers, fishing, cozy, co-op
Despite Stardew Valley being heavily inspired by the Harvest Moon games, it does share many aspects with the Animal Crossing series. Stardew Valley has you move to a small town, where you must build up your grandfather's run-down farm. And while there is a ton of work to do on the farm, it isn't overwhelming and you are generally left to work at ...
