Gaming

PS5 Exclusive ‘Anime Life Sim’ Looks Like Shein Crossing: Temu Horizons, and Will Likely Not See Its 2026 Release Date

Hmm, this looks rather familiar, don’t you think? ‘Anime Life Sim’ is totally different than any games involving crossing animals, right?

A "gameplay" screenshot of Anime Life Sim on PlayStation 5 overlaid onto a TEMU Emulator that is supposed to look like a Nintendo Switch
Screenshot: Shaun CIchacki

Hey, do you like Animal Crossing, but wish you could play it on your PlayStation 5? Don’t worry, someone is dropshipping — I mean, developing — a version that looks almost the same. Anime Life Sim, the game with the greatest name since… ever, is planning a release on PlayStation 5 in 2026. If I had to take a wild guess, though? It’s never going to see the light of day.

Anime Life Sim screenshot from the PlayStation store listing
Screenshot: Maksym Vysochanskyy trading as IndieGames3000

I’m So happy To Play ‘Asset Flipping: New Dimensions’ Now That ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Doesn’t Have Proper Support Anymore

So, taking a couple of seconds to look into the varied history of completely original titles by Maksym Vysochanskyy, it looks like Anime Life Sim is not their first foray into the world of asset-flipped games. Rip-off games based on Chained Together, Cyberpunk 2077, and more litter their library. So, it’s unfortunately not surprising to see that Animal Crossing was next on their radar.

Videos by VICE

I think my favorite has to be the “totally not AI” thumbnail for the excellently titled Mechanic Supermarket 2024, which isn’t sure if it wants to be a car repair game or a supermarket manager game. It’s all over the place, and it just goes to show that the approval process for the PlayStation store needs a bit of revamp if they want to combat all of this shovelware.

‘anime life sim’ — like, come on, man

Nintendo was quick to counter the claims made by accessory maker Genki by confronting them at CES for having a dummy model of an alleged Switch 2. I don’t think that our friend Maksym is going in the good graces of the Nintendo Ninjas. Especially after essentially copying/pasting their models directly from the latest Animal Crossing game into his newest title.

Checking the official “Indiegames3000” website, you can see to plenty of AI pictures to go along with their official “games” schedule. So, the lore just keeps getting deeper and more interesting. Maybe Anime Life Sim is going to be a much bigger deal than we could have ever expected. That is, if it lives long enough to see its supposed 2026 release date. I have a feeling this is getting taken down long before that happens.