Stardew Valley vs. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - How to Decide Which Game to Dive Into

gamerant.com:

There's been a notable rise in popularity for farming and other related life sims over the past decade, though the genre has long-established its calming play style. Most recently though, two games that have become iconic examples of this trend are Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Stardew Valley wasinitially released in 2016 for PC and then later to console. In that time, the game has enjoyed enduring popularity thanks to its unique world, colorful characters, and multiple major updates to the game. Impressively, the game was developed by a single person, ConcernedApe, and was inspired by games like Harvest Moon and the Animal Crossing series. While Stardew is a relatively new IP, the Animal Crossing series has been hugely popular since it began in 2001. The most recent entry in the series, New Horizons, is of particular note though since it came out in the early days of the pandemic, and so the type of social, escapist gameplay it offered was very much in demand.

Since Animal Crossing: New Horizons is only available on the Switch, this will limit some gamers' access to it; Stardew, on the other hand, is available on multiple platforms. Beyond that though, the two games do offer different experiences of playing. The nuances between the two game's play styles will mean that one might suit some gamers more than the other, however, for a lot of players, the simple solution is to just play both games. Both games only require as much participation as the players want, and have different approaches to foster long-term and sustained gameplay. Generally, most fans of each series will admit to 100's of hours of playing these relatively simple and scaled-back games, and so even if both games seem appealing, it