Petit Planet is exactly the Animal Crossing clone it looked like, but after 15 hours of it I'm shocked by how many new ideas it has too

HoYoverse is no stranger to "shameless ripoff" allegations, having contended with Zelda: Breath of the Wild comparisons since Genshin Impact released its first trailer. Genshin, as it turns out, isn't very much like BOTW at all. But Petit Planet? Yeah, I feel pretty safe calling it a blatant Animal Crossing: New Horizons ripoff. How could I not when almost every moment of its opening few hours gave me vivid flashbacks of Tom Nook and his merry band of mortgage apologists?

I'm not talking 'vaguely similar' in the way every life sim with fishing and furniture is these days, but almost scene-for-scene, feature-for-feature familiar. The influence of Nintendo's mega hit starts immediately, as I take control of the only human inhabiting a tiny planet with lovable anthropomorphic animals. From there I set off on a familiar journey creating a character, choosing a terrain type for terraforming my tiny planet to my liking, having a campfire meal with my neighbors, acquiring tools, setting up a few houses, and eventually having a weird dream about an intergalactic being called Oumuamua. (K.K. Slider called, he wants his dreamscape debut back.)

After all that there's a lot of shaking fruit trees, mining, farming, and catching bugs, fish, and sea creatures for the eventual grand opening of the Omni-Gallery—a museum displaying all of your finds. I could go on, but you get it: this is all very familiar. And yet, after 15 hours with Petit Planet, I’m finding it hard to care.

HoYo hasn't just slapped on an intergalactic paintjob over ACNH and called it a day, much as it may sound like it. Instead we're treated to the streamlining and improvement of just about every complaint ever lobbed at a life sim, a bunch of cute new systems, and characters imbued with that signature HoYo charm.

A home amongst the stars

Perhaps the most obvious example of Petit Planet improving upon the familiar is a bit of the game called Starsea Voyage. Instead of Kapp'n and his boat, you get in your car to explore a beautiful, sparkling cosmic landscape. Pick any bite-sized islet from here to go farming with a few neighbors in tow, who help with grunt work like mining and fishing. While they were toiling away I went hunting for treasure, talked to potential new neighbors and solved some basic puzzles. Gone are the repetitive resource runs—now we're treated to a sense of discovery wrapped in a striking nebula skybox.

If designing is more your jam, then fear not, as Petit Planet has all the bells and whistles. A catalogue of thousands of items, decorating your house and getting it rated, customizing almost the entirety of your planet. However if, like me, designing has never been your forte, PlanetMaker mode and set blueprints make customizing outside space mercifully easy.

Bulk crafting, the ability to carry everything instead of running out of pocket space, and a precision farming mode are also welcome improvements. As is the inclusion of the Luca Arbor, which in theory is just another level-gating system, but in practice makes sure you don't get overwhelmed by every new feature at once. This glowing space-tree only doles out unlockables like more farming plots, changes in weather, and new features like a wholesome letter-writing activity after you complete certain quest milestones. Which also means you have to wait actual days, as the game runs in real time. There's no "time traveling" allowed either, as you play on a server.

I actually think this is part of the secret sauce that makes Petit Planet a truly chill experience. There may be dailies to tick-off, because of course there are, but rare is the live service game that actually encourages you to log off satisfied instead of endlessly grinding something in an endless compulsion loop.

One thing that might keep you around a little longer every day is the Galactic Bazaar, a space to chat with other players, take part in group minigames, and relax in a coffee house run by an AI chatbot character called Nalo. It's hard to gauge just how good the multiplayer is, as playing on a preview build meant my bazaar was completely empty, but talking with Nalo surprised me—she turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the game.

Nalo is clearly designed to be endlessly positive and emotionally supportive—part cozy companion, part digital therapist. I'm sure there are those who'll talk to Nalo for her intended purpose, but for me, trying to break her logic became its own minigame. She really makes a great straightman to some monumentally stupid conversations. At times her boundless optimism tipped into slightly worrying territory as she responded to obviously bad scenarios with cheerful neutrality. Funny for now, but I can only imagine what horrors Nalo's going to excuse with a smile when more people get access to her.

I like Nalo for now, because she's a novelty, but I'm thankful none of the neighbors are AI. I'll take a voiced cast of unique, human-written personalities over chatbot shenanigans any day. Especially when those characters are so lovingly designed as they are in Petit Planet. You won't find a cookie cutter personality type like "Big Sister" or "Snob" here. I suspect the trade-off is having fewer characters in total in Petit Planet than in the latest Animal Crossing, but with so many quests, unlockables, and backstory tidbits attached to each neighbor, I'm perfectly fine with that.

And he may not be a neighbor, but I have to give a shout out to Glenn—the autumnal squirrel shopkeeper—as he may just be the most adorable thing I've ever laid eyes on. In fact, the entire game is utterly adorable, thanks to chibi anime art and a vibrant color palette. It's a genuine delight to just exist in this world. Well, worlds.

While there's a lot to love about Petit Planet, my biggest concerns are actually unknown quantities. The first is how monetization works, as there's nothing past an optional battle pass packed with cosmetics in this preview build. Will it be gacha? Will the gacha involve characters, furniture, cosmetics—all three? Will you be able to skip time, or go on more Starsea Voyages if you pay up? Because that would completely change its carefully crafted no-pressure design.

My other concern is it turning into Roblox 2.0, as the Galactic Bazaar and other multiplayer features involve speaking with strangers directly. With Petit Planet so clearly targeting the family market, I hope there will be stringent privacy safeguards in the full release.

The biggest known issue remains the Animal Crossing of it all. And yeah, HoYo’s first stab at a cozy life sim remains unquestionably derivative, but that becomes less of a bother the more layers of charm Petit Planet reveals. I'm just having fun with my daily trips to the Starsea, annoying Nalo, wanting to pinch Glenn's li'l cheeks, and taking my sweet time enjoying each new feature as it gradually unlocks.

So if HoYoverse can handle the monetization sensibly and put proper protections in place for its social features, it's hard to imagine Petit Planet not becoming everyone's next cozy obsession, as it has been mine this past week.