‘Economists should study it’: inside Disney Dreamlight Valley, the latest game taking over TikTok

Disney Animal Crossing' is all over the video platform, but is it merely an imitation of everyone's favourite pandemic play? Or will Mickey and co have you enthralled?

When I first noticed TikTokers effusing about something called Disney Dreamlight Valley, I imagined it was your standard gem-matching mobile game, complete with in-app purchases and the occasional uncanny valley Elsa cheering you on from the sidelines. But throughout September, TikTok continued to feed me more and more videos of people claiming to be addicted" to a game that had taken over their life". Someone, somewhere called it Disney Animal Crossing" and with that, I was off to see a mouse about a house.

Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, Gameloft's Disney Dreamlight Valley is a simulation adventure that owes Tom Nook-levels of debt to everyone's favourite pandemic play, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In both games, you obtain a home in a strange land and start fishing, digging, breaking rocks, picking flowers, growing crops and crafting to make it as idyllic as possible for new residents. In Disney's offering, these residents are Goofy, WALLE and Ursula. Dreamlight even rips off ACNH's rewards programme, rebranding Nook miles" to Dreamlight duties", though it gives it a notably more adult - or at least, Disney adult - interface.