Publisher Team17 is bringing Hokko Life to Switch this September! If you remember as far back as 2020, we talked about this game as having some serious Animal Crossing vibes, and now it's hopping over to a Nintendo platform on the 27th September.
Developed by Wonderscope Games, Hokko Life has been in Steam Early Access since July 2021 and, since then, has seen a ton of updates that bring more customisation, more skills, and even a little bit of Stardew Valley into the mix. You can visit a distant city centre (think City Folk!), unlock perks to make village life just a bit easier, and craft and customise clothes, furniture, and more!
Placing furniture and building houses is now much easier, and you can select just where you want your items to go. And all of the villagers are animals who speak in Animalese-type voices! It's just way too cosy for us — the perfect game for the Fall season, really.
Of everything, we're particularly excited to dive into the city part of Hokko Life. We love Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but we do miss visiting a bustling town and going shopping elsewhere.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the game's features, straight from Team17's press release:
Hokko Life Key Features:
- Get Creative: The workshop awaits as players take control over every aspect of Hokko, with the 3D design tool, every aspect of a player’s creation can be tailored to perfection
- Dare to Design: No detail is too small, everything from the colour, fabric, and angle of the pillow on a chair can be edited
- Sharing is Caring: Players will be able to share their meticulously crafted designs with friends and other players around the world
- Back of the Net: A lazy afternoon in Hokko can be spent with a net or pole in hand, catching and collecting the critters crawling around town
- Meet the Neighbours: Hokko’s townsfolk offer a warm welcome, and with varying personalities, they all make for fantastic friends.
Are you excited to get cosy with some more animal villagers? Hokko Life will be settling down on the Switch next month, on the 27th September. And we're ready to move into another brand new life.
Have you played Hokko Life in Early Access? Are you looking forward to the game's Switch release? Let us know in the comments!
Comments 31
Looking forward to this
Does anyone else find this buzzword "cosy" to describe games annoying and twee? 🤢
This looks like a lot of fun! I'll be keeping an eye out for it.
@Clyde_Radcliffe yes, but not as annoying as metroidvania, rogue-like, and the absolute worst offender of all, rogue-lite. shudder
Woohoo...!
I saw PS4 from the trailer. 😃
Really hope the game will get physical release in the future just like other Team17 games.
@Daniel36 ahhaha having read your post I now feel comfortable confessing that I despise the term "immersive sim". My biggest shudders however are reserved for "shmup". I can hardly bear to type it.
❗️That ship has long sailed; No one gives a pixel about AniCro anymore...
A mix between Animal crossing, MySims and Harvest moon/Story of seasons, Great! ^^
i'm glad to see that there's more games that are like Animal Crossing coming out. I honestly like Magician's Quest and MySims. as for this game, i'm definitely interested in picking up the game. one thing that i like about Animal Crossing: City Folk was going to the city and explore around it.
Being able to turn furniture to different angles (other than right angles) is something i'd like to see in the next AC proper.
If it doesn't use real time gameplay then I'm open to it. Love Animal Crossing but since I can only really play between 8pm and 2am, it got really boring
Wow, it looks like the same engine but without the shine effect. Like everything is “matte.”
Then you have the action animation (digging, thing pops out of hole) which are really very similar.
It honestly looks really fun and well put-together but as someone who’s biased, I’ll be constantly comparing the two to the point where I wouldn’t even enjoy it. It’s like listening to a cover band and then just wanting to play the original.
I wish Animal
crossing on Switch turned out the content a bit quicker and gave more from the get go. At this point, even with pandemic times, I’m pretty sure I put more time into the 3DS entry (non-pandemic, working full time) than I did Switch (pandemic times, working full time.)
No hate toward the game at all but the feeling it could’ve been even better is there for sure.
I really wanted to like this game when I played it on PC, but something just wasn't there for me. Don't get me wrong, based on the Steam reviews there are plenty of people that did enjoy it, but the reception was sort of mixed.
The game had potential but was really pretty bland... Not a lot to do and a very directionless and slow start. Mostly a pretty but empty world... I assumed it would get better with more updates as it was still in early access, but seeing it have a full release this soon makes me doubt it.
IMO this probably isn't ready for a full release, I only got 4 hours into it and it left a lot to be desired. I have a lot of respect for indie devs, but this wasn't for me.
I loved AC and sunk over 100hrs into it but it got really dull, this looks like what AC should be and more. I'm not connected with the characters in AC so I will definitely try this
I’ve had this on my steam wish list for a long time. I have my steam deck finally and now it gets announced for switch. Keeping the conflict going.
So will all the people, who were complaining about it for being a "ripoff", backpedal and be excited about it now?
@yuwarite It's absolutely a ripoff, I mean obviously, but I'm still kinda excited besides the ugly animals and amateur animations
Other than the graphics being alright at best, this game seems to have a lot of charm that was removed with New Horizons. Granted I had my fun with New Horizons, but most of the music, the lack of previous features, etc prevented New Horizons from achieving the quaint feel of previous games.
@SpaceboyScreams
Hokko Life is not a rip off.
The game have some difference than Animal Crossing.
The major difference is the time speed.
Hokko Life using Harvest Moon style time speed, not real time like Animal Crossing.
Hokko Life can accept as many animal villagers as you can depend on your island capacity, unlike Animal Crossing with limited number of villagers on your island.
Also, the character design on Hokko Life was not really bad as you think.
Sure it was different but don't judge the game by character design.
@NinjaNicky Why don't you just time shift your entire system by 10 hours?? And if you still need a clock on your Switch with the correct time you can get AAA clock on the eShop? (Hey I finally discovered a reason to need a time app on Switch!)
Delete this game
@Anti-Matter - I'm not saying this game is a rip-off, but you really must not understand the term if those are your counter arguments. Something is still a rip off when superfluous numerical details are changed. The core of what the game is; the gameplay, structure, art-style etc. is what's in question. Seriously; if someone took a Pokémon game and doubled the clock speed and added a few more mons, by your own standard it'd no longer be a rip-off, lol.
@Anti-Matter Well I'm certainly glad they added a few things instead of making it a 100% copy but those details you mentioned aren't nearly enough to keep people from thinking "oh hey look at how hard it's trying to be Animal Crossing", and I doubt the devs would deny it either, and you know it's actually okay to be that heavily inspired by something that you want to wear it on your sleeve like that? I'm not judging, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck (you know the rest).
Also, I'll judge it however I feel like judging it, thanks. If character design is something I feel is important, and the designs I've seen so far are abysmal, then I'm not going to stop myself from judging it. I hope you can come to terms with that.
Not a fan of the art style, but maybe the gameplay will be better than the disappointment that was New Horizons.
@Aozz101x I agree, those games while similar to AC had a lot of their own charm. I would have loved to seen a Magician's Quest on the switch.
I look forward to seeing more about this game.
@VoidofLight
lol. I have it on Steam, this is a buggy, empty, ugly (looks much better on screens), abrupt mess, and the last time I checked, the developers were not interested in making the world at least a bit less abstract; instead, the main focus was on adding more features to the object editor.
The editor is the best part of the game. It's not intuitive at first, but it gives a chance to create and customize lots of unique staff. The game itself, however, is frustratingly bare bones. I bought it because I missed AC New Leaf and had doubts about getting a Switch with AC New Horizons, since I knew it had many changes fan disliked. Hokko Life managed to become the push I needed. I got the console and I am happy with New Horizons, even though some changes fall flat for me, just because I've seen how much worse it can be when the creators are not invested in their own world and its habitants.
I just hope that this game is not as boring as Animal Crossing. Did enjoy it for a week, but then once you beat it you have no reason to come back and bo point in starting a new save. Seriously sometimes Nintendo do the most stupidest *****.
@juxjox Ah, shame that Hokko Life is awful. I guess here's hoping that Nintendo gets their stuff together for the next entry, instead of ruining it like they did New Horizons.
@Clyde_Radcliffe I jumped straight to the comments to say this haha. I'm so tired of seeing "cosy" everywhere. It's all over Twitch, too! And the use of "an" in place of "and", like...???
"Animal crossing vibes"
Also known as, clearly a Rip off of animal crossing. Seriously, right down to the talking animal villagers? Won't be rewarding them for stealing, I'll stick with animal crossing.
@Anti-Matter its still a rip off, right down to the design, characters, and game play. The time system doesn't change that, lol
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