Animal Crossingis, without a doubt, one of the biggest life simulation game franchises in the world, and it’s most recent installment,New Horizons, became a critical and commercial success back in 2020. Naturally, this game has inspired many other life sims, but one company may have gone a bit too far…
MeetAnime Life Sim, a brand-new video game that recently appeared in the PlayStation Store. You may have noticed (as many fans already did) that it bears a striking resemblance toAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, bordering on plagiarism according to some fans. Of course, big game companies can’t technically copyright an art style, but Anime Life Sim’s cartoony characters, bright colors, and top-down perspective look almost identical toNew Horizon‘s, and it definitely lacks an identity of its own as a result. Most important of all, why is it calledAnime Life Simwhen it clearly doesn’t have an anime-like art style?
The game’s official description gives us more details about the game, and the elements it’s clearly taking fromAnimal Crossingbecome even more evident.Anime Life Simwill feature animal neighbors, a customizable home, a living community, and even daily activities like fishing, bug-catching, and fossil digging.Weirdly enough, the PS Store states that it will come out on February 2026, which is surprisingly long for a game like this one. Granted, this could be a mistake, and the publisher may have actually wanted to set its release date for February 2025 instead.
Who’s the company responsible for this obvious Animal Crossing clone?
The PlayStation Store listsAnime Life Sim‘s publisher as “Maksym Vysochanskyy trading as IndieGames3000”. So, when we take a look at bothits official websiteandother games it has listed on Sony’s storefront, one thing immediately stands out: A lot of strange-looking potentially AI-generated images, which is definitely not a good look for it.
IndieGames3000 has quite an infamous reputation among gamers.Several users on the Steam Community Forumshave accused it of allegedly making low-quality mobile games with a lot of asset flipping, only to later port them to home consoles like the PlayStation 5. Because of the company’s previous works (coupled with the blatant look of the actual game),Animal Crossingfans on social mediahave already labeledAnime Life Simas a “scam” and a “rip-off” that is not worth paying for.
I understand that, sinceAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsis not available on any non-Nintendo consoles, PlayStation 5 users may want to play a similar high-quality life simulation game on their console of choice. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend that you tryAnime Life Simwhen it comes out, mainly because there are many other solid life sims you may try on your PS5, like the Disney-themedDisney Dreamlight Valleyor the critically acclaimedStardew Valley.
