Hiya Kitty Island Journey Involves Nintendo Change, PS4, PS5 and PC in 2025

Subsequent 12 months, Sanrio’s lovable forged of characters will transfer past your iPhones and iPads. Hiya Kitty Island Journey, the comfy group vibes sport that debuted in July 2023 on Apple Arcade, is lastly increasing in 2025 to Nintendo Change, and PC as a timed unique earlier than coming to the PS4 and PS5. 

Notably absent is the Xbox. However even releasing the sport past Apple Arcade is a welcome change for Sanrio followers outdoors Apple’s ecosystem. Hiya Kitty Island Journey is the sort of chill, low-stakes expertise roaming round a serene isle doing enjoyable duties that dovetails nicely with Sanrio’s lovable forged. 

Followers have stored enjoying the sport, with over 40,000 individuals in its official discord, mentioned Chelsea Howe, chief product officer at Sunblink. She credit the characters and the sport’s uniqueness — letting you create your individual Sanrio-styled character, journey in dynamically totally different areas, enhance your property, craft and create — with its recognition.

“I feel we at all times get preliminary shock [at the game.] If it’s a Sanrio fan, they’ve by no means seen a sport like this,” mentioned Howe. “They’ve by no means seen a chance the place they’ll actually get to know the characters and join with the characters, expertise the backstories of characters.” 

However Sunblink has additionally stored followers proud of common content material expansions. Hiya Kitty Island Journey launched with over 30 hours of content material for gamers, and studio Sunblink has stored followers engaged by including content material on an everyday cadence — updates each three weeks, new options in an enormous replace each six weeks — that is grown the sport to round 80 hours now. 

At first blush, Hiya Kitty Island Journey seems lots like the comfy sport king that preceded it, Animal Crossing New Horizons. The video games have an identical island setting and group vibes. However Hiya Kitty Island Journey has distinguishing parts that shock followers, Howe says, like its open world facet. There are biomes and island options like ruins to discover, which include underground puzzle and logic rooms. And as a substitute of paying down a debt to a sketchy racoon landlord, the principle mechanic is leveling up your friendships with the Hiya Kitty herself, Chococat, Cinnamoroll and different Sanrio characters.

“It was actually essential for us to deliberately merge the open world elements with the comfy life sim elements and proceed to stroll that line regardless of the Animal Crossing comparisons,” Howe mentioned.

One other manner it is totally different than Animal Crossing New Horizons: You should not tweak your console’s clock to trick your sport into considering it is earlier or later, which followers referred to as “time touring.”

“Do not do it. You probably did it in Animal Crossing. Do not do it on this sport,” laughs Howe. That is not a promise of punishment — for those who time journey, you may miss out on real-time occasions, probably locking you out of latest content material. Sure, the identical content material that Sunblink provides each few weeks. 

That features in-game occasions linked to holidays, like Valentine’s Day, which all gamers will expertise on the similar time. Now that the sport is coming to different platforms past Apple gadgets, Sunblink faces the additional problem to replace a number of platforms without delay. It’s going to do that by rolling out the Apple Arcade model updates on the identical cadence whereas bundling a number of in larger updates for consoles and PC.

Howe says Sunblink listens to its followers and has added options or made tweaks primarily based on what they’ve advised. Typically this has meant introducing options which are just like these in Animal Crossing, and different occasions it is eradicating offending options. As an example, the sport has no stock caps: “That was the primary factor that was an enormous frustration for me personally in Animal Crossing and for lots for others,” Howe mentioned. 

One other added characteristic is the TikTok-friendly capability to edit your character’s dwelling cabin on the island. If buddies are watching, they’ll ship emoji and provides different reside suggestions whilst you’re adorning. “If considered one of your excessive degree motivations is self-expression, and if you would like it to be a social expertise, the extra you may allow collaborative self-expression the higher,” Howe mentioned.

All of this non-combative, friendship and nurture-focused play is coming to consoles and PC for an undisclosed value, however Sunblink has carried over one other characteristic from Apple Arcade: no microtransactions. As a substitute, there’s a mixture of free and paid updates, which Sunblink believes will resonate higher with the fan base. “It is positively all about ensuring that it feels prefer it’s well worth the worth that you just’re offering,” Howe mentioned. 

Cozy sport followers could have another choice when Hiya Kitty Island Journey involves a number of platforms subsequent 12 months, and Howe emphasised that gamers will dictate how lengthy the sport retains going.

“We see this as the beginning, not the tip. It is a reside sport. We have at the least two years of roadmap forward of us,” Howe mentioned. “So long as persons are having fun with it and loving it and enjoying it, we intend to maintain on sustaining it.”