The Ultimate Quality of Life Feature that Must Be Added in the Next Animal Crossing Game

Highlights

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has made the game more accessible with quality of life improvements like a Drop-Off Box and bigger pocket size.

Palia's overflow inventory system could serve as a role model for the upcoming Animal Crossing game, enhancing inventory management. The system enables players to store temporarily any excess items that do not fit within their primary inventory, thereby streamlining resource gathering and safeguarding valuable possessions.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons introduced some significant improvements that greatly enhanced the accessibility of the game for new players. Features such as the Drop-Off Box for selling items to Nook's Cranny when it's closed, and an expanded overall pocket size, allow players to gather and sell items from their island with increased efficiency. However, there is still potential for further enhancement, and the next Animal Crossing installment should consider implementing Palia's overflow inventory system as a model to follow.

Palia, despite being in its Open Beta stage since August 9, has already established itself as a new benchmark for the life-simulation genre. One of the key areas where the game surpasses other titles in the genre is its innovative approach to managing inventory. As an MMO with a vast world to explore and resources to collect, Palia players often find themselves in need of more inventory space than is available to them. Animal Crossing: New Horizons players encounter a similar challenge, and adopting Palia's elegant solution to this issue would be a perfect fit for the next Animal Crossing game.

Palia's Overflow Inventory Should Inspire the Next Animal Crossing

In life simulation games like Palia and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players engage in the gameplay loop of gathering various resources such as fish, insects, ore, and furniture. The accumulation of these resources, whether for crafting, selling, or decorating purposes, often leads to a quickly filling inventory when exploring the game world. Consequently, players frequently face the need to abandon items in order to conserve storage space, resulting in multiple trips to gather all desired items or the risk of losing those dropped items.

Palia provides an effective solution to this inventory issue through the inclusion of an additional overflow inventory bar. This temporary storage space allows players to temporarily hold items that cannot fit in their regular backpack. Although items stored in the overflow inventory will disappear after a certain period if not transferred to permanent storage, it greatly improves upon the risk of losing valuable items or the inconvenience of repeatedly running back and forth to collect resources. By promptly transferring overflow items to their main inventory, players can ensure a seamless gaming experience.

The Animal Crossing series could enhance its next entry by implementing a similar inventory system. This system would offer players a limited number of overflow spaces in their inventory, specifically reserved for when their pockets are full. While Animal Crossing players don't have to worry about dropped items disappearing when leaving an area, having this type of system would greatly improve the efficiency of resource collecting gameplay. For example, players who are focused on earning Bells through fishing might find themselves with a full inventory when a shark appears. With this inventory system, they can still catch the shark without fear of it disappearing if they leave.

If the next Animal Crossing game embraces the open-world genre, this inventory system would be even more valuable. Gathering resources such as fruit in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is already time-consuming if players have to constantly travel back and forth. In an open world setting, this task would become even more burdensome. Regardless of the game's direction, this simple quality of life feature would be a highly appreciated addition to the franchise.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available for Nintendo Switch.