Humble Games and Stairway Games’ highly anticipated farming simulator, Coral Island, takes players on an adventure to a thriving island community where they can farm, forage, craft, decorate, and help conserve and restore the landscape of Coral Island. Similar to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, Coral Island allows players to customize their experience and focus on the features they prefer, whether that's collecting bugs and fish for the Museum, helping restore coral reefs through diving, or raising crops and livestock. Coral Island sets itself apart from these other farm and life simulators, however, through its vibrant cast of characters, compelling and timely storyline, and surprising depth for a game just starting Early Access.
When they begin a new game, players can customize their avatar with a modest variety of options that has plenty of room to grow as Coral Island develops. Once they arrive at the island from the big city Pokyo, players are given a humble, wooden cabin to call home that they can upgrade, customize, and decorate over time. On that property is a large, overgrown field in which they can grow crops, raise animals, and develop their relationship with the nature of the island. Players will need to spend time and stamina to clear this field, which can be done to obtain important crafting resources and treasures, and begin planting seeds based on what is seasonally available. They can then sell their produce to purchase more goods, including food to increase stamina, seeds to grow more crops, customizations like clothing for their character or furniture for their homes, or plans to upgrade and expand their farming operations.
More akin to Cozy Grove than Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Coral Island is already a thriving, but forgotten community when the player arrives. The player character learns on just their second day on the island that an oil spill spread sickness across the island, harming both the landscape and the coral reefs surrounding it. A giant corporation, Pufferfish Drilling Corp is attempting to move to the island under the guise of building the community back up, but in reality, it wants to buy property to begin drilling more oil. Knowing this, the citizens living there are more than a little skeptical. These citizens all have jobs in the community, from the carpenter couple Dinda and Joko, to the grocer Sam, to the Museum curator Scott and the blacksmithing brothers Rafael and Pablo. With so many Townies already established, the player character is not attempting to settle a new town but rather to fit into an existing one and better the community there.
By far the most striking aspect of Coral Island is the world, largely due to the story and the characters. While most farming and life simulators only offer a loose story, like taking ownership of a relative's farm or settling on an uninhabited island, Coral Island quickly presents the player with the start of a fascinating adventure with a conservationist spin. Players learn right away that a recent oil spill all but destroyed the island and that colorful ancient spirits want to help restore it, with the player's help. While it's not clear how much these spirit characters are based on any real-world religious belief, Coral Island creates its own unique mythos around these legendary figures. The world-building feels simple to grasp but remarkably deep and detailed. While there is some lore to currently explore, there is also plenty of room for that lore to expand as Coral Island develops.
Beloved NPCs in cozy games can often make or break the experience. While some NPCs in games are entirely forgettable or interchangeable, Coral Island's more than 70 NPCs immediately get attention and have the potential to be some fan favorites for years to come. Each character feels unique, both in appearance and personality. There is some significant diversity on display, with characters of all races and cultures represented. Some wear headscarves. Others have prosthetic limbs. Several belong to the LGBTQ+ community. All have varying body types and features, like natural hair textures or tattoos or body hair. Each character feels recognizable and different, and fans are likely to quickly find a favorite or two. Coral Island also includes an RPG-style, comprehensive relationship system that allows players to befriend their favorite NPCs, get to know them, and even offer them gifts. Future plans include cutscenes with each NPC once players reach certain friendship thresholds.
The hybrid art style of Coral Island is beautiful, and the environment is quite detailed when compared to other farming and life simulators. The 3D graphics and animation during gameplay look great, and each character appears to have their own unique set of idle animations. When in dialog, however, players will also see a full-body 2D color portrait of each character that also changes expressions and poses. These renderings are quite beautiful and allow players to see the details of each NPC, like the elementary school teacher who has a prosthetic arm or the female characters with realistic body hair. These small details would otherwise be missed depending on the position of the 3D model wandering around the world.
If anything, the weakest part of Coral Island so far is the farming feature. Clearing the field is a great touch and quite a fun mechanic, but, beyond that, players need only use a hoe to turn the soil and click a square to set their seeds in the ground. From there, they can water their crops daily until it's time to harvest. Assuming this feature will deepen once Coral Island leaves Early Access, perhaps with activities like weeding, mulching or fertilizing, eliminating pests, losing crops to various chance encounters, or conducting research to improve output, it isn't a major detriment. However, given Coral Island is advertised as a farming simulator, and the player character is constantly recognized around town as the "new farmer," it is highly noticeable that this feature is the least in-depth so far.
Despite this, Coral Island's gameplay is already polished for still being in Early Access. There is a complex weather system that includes four seasons, so players can plant and harvest different crops at different times. Similar to Stardew Valley's Skull Cavern, there is a cavern players can explore to mine Earth and Water shafts and fight any creatures that threaten them while they are there. Players can build barns and coops to ranch adorable livestock like chickens, goats, pigs, and cows and plant a variety of crops. They can also forage various items to be used in crafting or sold for quick cash. They can collect bugs, fish, and undersea creatures, dig for fossils, and find ancient artifacts from the island's past. They can donate the first of each of these items they find to the museum to rebuild the island's collection.
Beyond that, they can go shopping, decorate their home, customize their character's appearance, clean up trash, and much more. Some of these features are clearly derived from other popular cozy games, but they are executed well in Coral Island and still manage to feel fresh. Stairway Games also plans to include more activities, including festivals for each season and expanded activity options for Winter as Coral Island progresses through Early Access. While the incomplete save feature makes it difficult to experience everything Coral Island currently has to offer, it is clear that, as the game develops, there will be much more for players to discover.
Though it does not yet contain all features set to ship with the game at launch, Coral Island already stands apart as a welcome addition to the cozy game and farming simulator genres. Though the farming mechanics aren't particularly deep, they are compelling, and they are also simple enough to free up time for players to participate in any of the many other activities available. The NPCs are surprisingly rich, with interesting designs and backstories that make them, and by extension Coral Island itself, feel fleshed out and alive.
The stand-out feature of Coral Island, however, is the message. While it's not completely uncommon to see conservationist messaging in farming simulators, the way conservation and nature exploitation is addressed in Coral Island is integral to the game's story without feeling too preachy. It also combines well with the more metaphysical lore of the island. It's not an especially subtle message, but it is well-incorporated and elevates the story and stakes. Fans of cozy gaming will find a lot to love about Coral Island, and, even in Early Access, there is a polish and sophistication that bodes well for the full release.
Coral Island is available for Early Access on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. A Steam code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this preview.
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Coral Island
- Released:
- 2050-01-01
- Developer:
- Stairway Games
- Genre:
- Life Simulation, Simulation
- Platform:
- PC
- Publisher:
- Humble Games
- ESRB:
- Not Yet Rated
