Gameloft just announced Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new life-simulation game where players can build relationships with their favorite Disney characters, but there's good reason to believe that these relationships will be more Animal Crossing than Stardew Valley. This upcoming life sim will set players on a narrative-driven adventure to cure the game world of malignant Night Thorns while incorporating farming and management mechanics characteristic of other classic games. However, it's unlikely that some of the features in beloved titles like Stardew Valley, especially ones pertaining to love and romance, will appear in Disney Dreamlight Valley.
Animal Crossing is a series focused on cute, wholesome relationships between the player character and the game's many anthropomorphic animals. This includes even suspicious characters like Animal Crossing's man-in-a-suit Tom Nook. While these relationships can develop throughout a playthrough, they firmly stop at friendship. Conversely, players in Stardew Valley can engage in romance subplots with several NPCs, even progressing as far as marriage and children, building more of a fully-featured life.
With just how many similarities there are between the upcoming Disney Dreamlight Valley and Stardew Valley, some gamers might be wondering if the Disney life sim will feature romances in a similar fashion. However, this seems unlikely for a number of reasons, mainly having to do with how Disney treats its valuable IPs and the characters that belong to them. If there is a relationship system in Disney Dreamlight Valley, it will almost certainly be closer to Animal Crossing's strictly platonic one.
Why Disney Dreamlight Valley Won't Have Stardew's Romance System
While there are games like Rune Factory that feature Stardew-style romances, Disney Dreamlight Valley is constrained by the limitations of what Disney will allow for its characters. Disney Dreamlight Valley is set to include beloved and classic characters like Monster's Inc's Sully and Frozen's Elsa, who player might want to start an in-game relationship with, but these characters may be used in future films, shows, and other properties, so their images are likely to be protected from any images associated with intimate relationship with the player-character, at least beyond basic camaraderie. As such, features like the ability to date or marry these iconic characters is most likely out of the question.
This could be a disappointment to many players who are excited for Disney Dreamlight Valley, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, Animal Crossing is loved by millions for its wholesome, platonic city-building features, and Stardew Valley's many big secrets and RPG elements make it a great game beyond its satisfying romance system. Even if Disney Dreamlight Valley is launched without a romance feature, there will, hopefully, be many more things for players to enjoy.