With Animal Crossing: New Horizons getting a major free update this January, many fans are headed back to Nintendo’s popular cozy Switch game. But that doesn’t mean Animal Crossing fans aren’t in the market for more games with similar laid-back life sim and community vibes. That’s part of what made Heartopia such a highly anticipated release. The game’s 3D cartoon graphics and general gameplay loop make it appeal to fans of cozy games from The Sims 4 to Animal Crossing and beyond. Since its launch, the game has attracted some controversy, but that doesn’t seem to be slowing down its new fans.
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Heartopia initially launched for PC and mobile on January 7th, with Steam lagging a bit behind. But as of January 16th, the game is available on Steam, as well. And it’s there that the game became the subject of controversy surrounding required permissions and AI usage. Even with some potential fans swearing off the free-to-play life sim, though, Heartopia has maintained a steady count of around 40K daily players on Steam alone. Clearly, some players are loving the game despite its potential drawbacks.
Heartopia AI Disclosure Draws Backlash, But Over 40,000 Players Are Still Logging In
A game like Heartopia is naturally going to draw attention from the life sim fan base. It has cute 3D graphics and, better yet, it’s free-to-play. Many gamers, myself included, were more than ready to see what Heartopia had to offer when it launched. The game was immediately popular on mobile, though fewer PC gamers wanted to make the leap while the game wasn’t yet on Steam. As of January 24th, Heartopia has over 12K ratings on the Apple App Store, with an average score of 4.8 stars. So while many free games have a quick boom and bust thanks to the low barrier to entry, it seems like thousands of players are genuinely enjoying Heartopia.
Not everyone who picked up the game right at launch is here to stay, however. After the game arrived on Steam, some players found a few red flags. The game’s permissions gave some players pause, as it reportedly asks to search for and connect to any device on the local network. But the bigger issue for many comes down to gen AI usage and disclosure.
Steam requires that all games on the platform disclose their use of AI. And many players say that the use of AI-generated content wasn’t initially listed on the Heartopia Steam page, but was added later on after discourse about potential AI assets started to circulate. According to game changelog records on SteamDB, the game’s AI tags and disclosures have indeed been changed a few times since the game’s Steam version went live on January 18th.
On January 20th, the game’s AI Content disclosure was allegedly edited to add more information. Now, the game indicates two primary uses of generative AI – for its puzzles and for in-game chat translations. And many of the game’s negative Steam reviews cite this as a reason they will not be supporting the game.
The controversy isn’t the only reason for Heartopia‘s Mixed review rating, though. Many reviews also note that the controls don’t feel intuitive for PC, and that it feels poorly optimized. Yet despite the AI controversy and clunky controls, Heartopia seems to have found a consistent and growing player base.
Since the game’s Steam launch, it has regularly reached concurrent player peaks of between 28K to 40K players. In fact, as I’m writing this, the game has hit a new record peak of over 51, 200 players on Steam as I’m writing this. And that number doesn’t include those playing on mobile. From the looks of it, the Mixed reviews and concerns about permissions and AI aren’t enough to keep cozy gamers from seeing what Heartopia has to offer.
Have you played Heartopia yet, or will you be staying away due to the use of AI for puzzles and in-game chat? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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