Petit Planet Hands-On Preview: HoYoverse Space Life Sim Goodness

It’s easy to write off HoYoverse’s new life sim game Petit Planet as Temu Animal Crossing. You’ve got your anthropomorphic characters roaming around your homestead. You do requests for them and expand their home, giving them furniture to settle in. You go around your town chopping up wood, foraging for resources, and fishing/bug-collecting/shellfish-grabbing to either cook them or build an ecosystem for them.

The kicker? All this is happening on a planet you run courtesy of your associates from Loomi Co. led by a sheepdog person named Mobai. Not homestead or earth to make villages on; you own an entire tiny planet of the theme of your choice when you start off. And more if you play your cards right.

Petit Planet features a story and progression in the form of its Luca Tree. For every neighbour you get close with, and for every main story activity you do that contributes to the betterment of the planet, you get some space water called Luca to nurture the Luca Tree from its Luca Sapling origin. But other than that? Petit Planet is a game that has you relaxing while you slowly populate your planet with your craftings, tenants, and what-have-yous that make it a resort and a feast for the eyes.

I must say, it is rather refreshing to play a life sim styled like Animal Crossing using keyboard and mouse, with convenient hotkeys and controls that feel natural if you’ve played a real-time third-person gacha game or two. And I know a lot of you in Southeast Asia have.

Speaking of which, how DOES Petit Planet make its money back being a free-to-play title? Well, you have exclusive costumes and furniture from the Galactic Bazaar and real-money-only goods from the Planetary Fair. You also need to get special Luca batteries with in-game currency (and real-life ones) that let you do Starsea Voyages.

These are gathering and collecting quests that make you venture beyond your planet using your space car for exclusive goods and even new neighbours. Starsea Voyagers let you visit up to two planets before your battery gets depleted, and there’s nowhere else to get these save for the planet vending machine in the town square. I do feel the system is pretty fair, given that you are playing all this triple-A polished life sim experience for free.

While it shows its stripes obviously inspired by Nintendo’s own life sim franchise, Petit Planet has promise to be a wholesome life sim Animal Crossing-style title that is free to play and on PC. If you want to get your Animal Crossing-like jollies sorted but legally, launching that MiHoyo launcher and selecting this title is the way to go. Right now, a Stardrift Test is being held this late April, so now’s a good time to see what the planet hubbub is about.

Check out our Petit Planet gameplay below if you rather watch it instead.

https://youtu.be/Lmi2mCPA3hA

https://youtu.be/oTyx_QUCo2Q