Thunder Lotus, developer of such indie titles asJotunandSundered, has just released its latest game,Spiritfarer, a game about ferrying souls to the afterlife. This week has seenSpiritfarerlaunchingfor a growing list of platforms, and as a result, plenty of players are discovering the cheeky reference the game makes to Nintendo’sAnimal Crossingseries.
It actually makes a lot of sense for there to be someoverlap betweenAnimal CrossingandSpiritfarer. LikeAnimal Crossing: New Horizons,Spiritfarerfeatures a human protagonist and a supporting cast of distinct anthropomorphic animal characters, a relatively chill vibe, and gameplay that revolves around managing resources to create a personalized space surrounded by water. And as Kotaku points out,Spiritfarereven has its own version ofAnimal Crossing’s capitalism-happy raccoon, Tom Nook.
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Early on, players find themselves coming to the island settlement of Hummingberg, at the guidance of one of their passengers, a deer named Gwen. It’s there that they discover a shop called Raccoon Inc., run by a raccoon named Theodore. Already, the similarities to Tom Nook and his Nook Inc. brand are glaring, but it becomes even more apparent when it’s revealed that everything Theodore is selling costs far more than what players will likely have by this point inSpiritfarer, making all of it unattainable.
Luckily for players, Theodore does get called out for it, as Gwen berates him with a series of insults, calling him “trash panda” and his shady business practices “the reason we have middle fingers.” This leads him to drop his prices to a manageable level, while probably leaving a lotAnimal Crossingfanswishing they could do the same to Tom Nook.
Spiritfareris available for PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, and Xbox One.
MORE:Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 5 Tom Nook Fan Theories That Make Sense (& 5 That Don’t)
