Get ready to spend hours at “Disney Dreamlight Valley”, the video game that has already captured over a million fans

Coronavirus exile has not been easy for virtually anyone. Spending so many days without being able to leave the house except to buy food and throw out the garbage, being constantly bombarded by an almost apocalyptic and terrible scenario puts a strain on even the best furnished garments. But many of us found an oasis, never better said, among all the bad news when “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” was released on the Nintendo Switch. The life simulator helped us spend hundreds of hours taking care of our virtual island, collecting fruit, fish and insects, decorating our home, meeting new neighbors and creating real stock speculations with the turnip market. Sunday morning. “Animal Crossing” didn’t make the pandemic go away, but it did get through the confinement faster. All in a quiet and peaceful environment, just what we needed.

Disney also wants to try their luck in this ‘Stardew Valley’ style life simulator, and for this they partnered with Gameloft to create ‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’, a free-to-play title (i.e. free access but with micropayments all game) which from 6 September is already available in early access on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X | S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC for those who purchase the Founder’s Pack (paid) or subscribe to Xbox Game Pass. The game has already managed to gather more than a million fans in this valley where we will bring together Disney and Pixar characters to live adventures with them while we perform various tasks that make them and the valley thrive.

The house of the mouse has already tried on other occasions to make a macro-crossover with its worlds and protagonists, such as the legendary ‘Disney Infinity’ and its collectible figures. But ‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ has been able to find the right thread so that, once we enter the valley, probably as a fan of the films, we end up staying there for hours and hours thanks to its simple but effective gameplay.. Gameloft’s game entrusts us with the task of rebuilding a valley where all these characters once lived in harmony. Until the arrival of Oblivion, a powerful black magic that forced many to return to their respective worlds and others erased all memories of that time together. Our task will be to clarify the mystery and prevent the oblivion from happening again.

The general dynamic of ‘Dreamlight Valley’ is to gather resources to carry out the errands that the characters ask of us. We will have to grow vegetables, collect fruit, flowers and plants, extract minerals from rocks and earth and fish to then make objects, cook dishes or simply delete commands from a list of requests that will advance us in the story of each character and in the general plot of the valley.. All with its waiting times before our garden grows or the rock in question is regenerated. And with our character’s energy bar, which will exhaust the more actions we perform and which we can fill by eating the dishes we cook or returning home to rest, something that doesn’t add much to the game and is perhaps the most cumbersome. Despite being free-to-play, economic barriers don’t affect the game at all, at least in “Early Access” mode. You just need a little patience, especially at the end of the game, when the characters ask us for large amounts of resources in order to continue. We can assign a task to each character we bring downstream (fishing, agriculture, harvesting, etc.), which unfortunately they do not do automatically, but if we select them to accompany us on our walks, they will multiply the resources we find if we have assigned them that ‘ activity in question. Gameloft has implemented a friendship system through which we will receive rewards when we improve our relationship with the characters, as well as open new missions and stories.

We start with Merlin as mentor and with Mickey, Goofy and Scrooge (who in this game acts like the particular Tom Nook, of course) as the only neighbors in the valley, but very soon we will start welcoming new characters, such as Remy, Wall-E, Moana or Ursula. Each has its own story that gradually intersects with that of the other characters, giving us situations we never thought we’d see in the Disney multiverse, like Kristoff asking Maui for advice on having the hair of a demigod. Some of them will take us to travel in their worlds, a good way to change scenery if we are tired of the different areas of the valley. From time to time he will miss a mission that will let us delve into the mystery of Oblivion, what happened to the valley and its elusive ruler. This main plot is predictable, but in the end we don’t get to “Dreamlight Valley” to be surprised by the plot, but to relax by completing tasks and collecting characters.

Speaking of collection, as a good life simulator we will have a wide choice of objects and clothes to configure our home, the valley and our avatar to our liking (which we can customize when we want). In the case of clothing, we can also design it from scratch, taking advantage of the patterns we will earn during the game. Also, Gameloft will periodically launch specific events to get exclusive rewards if we complete specific tasks, such as Pixar Fest, with which we can obtain cosmetics from the films of the animation studio, such as the dress of the Incredibles, the pennants of Day of the Dead of “Coco” or the balloons of the house of “Up”. This is where the “currency” of the game comes in, as some items can only be obtained by exchanging moonstones.

Being early access, we will run into bugs from time to time, such as weird camera movements or Pippo’s insistence that he loves “sunny days”. I tried the PlayStation 5 version and the game crashed, forcing it to restart, on more than one occasion. But Gameloft is constantly working to iron out these details so that it is as stable as possible when it is released worldwide on a date yet to be announced. The technical section, without being graphically crazy, fulfills its mission of creating a fascinating environment with the various areas of the valley, the characters are well drawn and have characteristic animations for each of them (and the original voices in Spanish, or some really similar ), and the game is full of new Disney soundtrack arrangements.

It’s only the beginning

‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ achieves its main goal, which is to make the hours go by without realizing it. While the protagonists’ demand curve gets quite challenging pretty fast, and it’s better for us to start selling stuff like crazy if we want to have enough money to be able to pay for the reforms to Uncle Scrooge, we hallucinate every time we look at the clock and see the time that passed while we were collecting gems or cooking dishes in Remy’s restaurant. For Disney movie lovers, it is a pleasure to expand the valley’s population with new characters, check out what their homes are like and increase our friendship with them to receive awards and discover what secrets their stories hide and with whom they interact. And just take a walk in the central castle to check the number of gates from other realms that have not yet been revealed.. Will we be able to welcome the worlds of Marvel or “Star Wars”? We are only at the beginning of an adventure that over time promises many surprises.

This title has no greater claims than to make us forget the real world and move to a dream place that we can manage at will and without stress. He doesn’t invent anything we haven’t seen in ‘Animal Crossing’ or anything like that, but if we’ve already got all the juice out of Tom Nook’s Island, there is an entire valley full of magic, mystery and creativity waiting for us.

“Disney Dreamlight Valley” is now available in early access on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S | X, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store in three paid versions, called Founder’s Pack, which include a number of exclusive items for the game. It is also available within the Xbox Game Pass. Coming soon on the Mac App Store. In 2023 it will be released worldwide as a free-to-play game. The game allows you to jump from platform to platform and keep your progress except in PlayStation editions.