HoYoverse’s New Cozy Game Petit Planet is Looking to Take Over and Reinvent the Genre

Petit Planet is HoYoverse’s entry to the ever-popular cozy life simulator genre. With HoYoverse’s flair for creative game design, Petit Planet looks like it could be the best life simulator yet.

After getting my hands on the closed beta, I had very high expectations for Petit Planet, and it is surely looking promising. After playing for over 10 hours, here’s everything I’ve seen so far.

Petit Planet’s Breathtaking Vibrant Visuals Are Great, But Only The Beginning

Petit Planet’s charming design, with its vibrant colors, lively characters, and gorgeous worlds, immediately catches the eye. You feel gravitated to learn, explore, and interact with the world. I loved every bit of detail they added to make the game as simple but adorable as possible.

However, I do have a peculiar way of judging cozy games, and I tend to lean heavily on the depth of the game, looking at the game design (mostly gameplay loop) and creativity. Most cozy life simulator games usually just combine the same core foundation of crafting, designing, customizations, farming, fishing, and many others. Games usually find success by changing the setting or theme and having different variants of “doing X to get Y.”

What surprised me the most about Petit Planet is the redesign of a lot of key aspects of the common life-sim tropes. Instead of just selling your grown crops or using them to cook unique dishes and then selling them, there’s a delivery system called StarDash that works similarly to a real-life food delivery app, where neighbors order specific food and you deliver it for some extra Dough (the main currency).

In customization, you don’t just get the same furniture, but you also replace small pieces of that furniture with other objects, making it more unique and customizable to each player’s preferences. That allows a lot of creative freedom, which is further heightened by the game’s unique socialization features, such as meeting other players, forming bonds, and being encouraged to visit other players’ planets.

The progression system is also unique, as you get a Luca Seed to grow, which breathes life into your planet, literally. Nourishing your Luca Arbor (Luca Tree) allows you to unlock more and more unique crops, bugs, and everything in between, as if you are also customizing your own planet biome. I really loved this feature, as it sets a goal to look forward to without restricting freedom as much.

It is worth pointing out that the closed beta didn’t have any monetization yet, but there are signs of what these could be, like the Curio Emporium, which I would assume is mostly for cosmetics.

Petit Planet’s Social Aspect Could be the Make or Break for the Game

Petit Planet’s way of socializing with other players is quite unique, but it may also be familiar to some who have played games like Heartopia or Animal Crossing, as there are slight similarities.

To add friends, you can’t just literally add another user to your friends list. There’s a social currency called Starlight that is acquired through daily interactions with other players, such as gifting Starlight, chatting, reacting, taking photos, sharing items, messaging, and many others. Everyone starts as an acquaintance and should work their way up to becoming friends with more interactions, similar to how you would increase bonds with NPCs in your typical life sim.

It could be a bit annoying for some, but there are also good things that come with the feature.

There’s also a social hub called the Galactic Bazaar, which is basically another planet itself with lots of fun challenges, events, and other multiplayer-themed activities. Several quests also show up, giving players a chance to both socialize and unlock cool things together, and even progress.

I can already visualize the live-service gameplay loop this feature could create, and it could make or break the game, depending on how accessible these things are. So far, everything is looking good for Petit Planet and should be one of the most anticipated cozy games.