Whenever I see a new farming sim, I can’t help but think of that one Nintendo Direct back in 2023, where it seemed like the cozy life sim genre was becoming very saturated. There were so many games that it was hard for some of them to properly stand out. One of the games I remember from that time was Moonlight Peaks, and it felt like XSEED Games. We were invited to try the game out before its official release on July 7, 2026, so let’s see what the game’s looking like!

I Will Prove to You

In Moonlight Peaks, our story begins with you, the player, getting into an argument with your vampire dad. Frustrated, you decide to run away from home, with only your coffin and your trusty demon cat in tow. Your destination is none other than the abandoned shack over at the titular Moonlight Peaks. In there, you’ll meet a ton of different folks, but you will soon learn that some aren’t too receptive to the fact that your father has neglected the plot where your farm now stands.

You’ll meet a lot of unique folks around town, and they’ll introduce you to various activities, such as fishing, decorating, and much more, though, of course, I wasn’t able to try all of them. One thing I must say I immediately fell in love with was the character designs. Right at the beginning, I think I already chose who I want to tie the knot with, though I suppose that can change in the future. The game also manages to be very expressive, with the characters’ font featuring all sorts of effects.

An example I can give of this behavior is Orlock, the vampire you meet at the beginning of the game. When he is a bit angry, you can see some letters in his dialogue box jitter a bit. And when he screams, the font increases in size, and all the letters move. This is such a small thing that goes a long way in making the game more expressive while not requiring any voice acting.

The Night Is Still Young

Something that I noticed is how you’ll begin each day…Or I suppose… your night, at 6 PM rather than 6 AM. Which makes sense because of how the player is a vampire and how many of Moonlight Peaks’ residents are also supernatural creatures that don’t do well with sunlight. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty minor detail, but it fits the vibe of the town. And I will say that this town is positively massive. I will admit it did take me a good while to manage to map all the in-game locations, which just made me wish you could pin or track locations in your map. There was one quest in particular where it told me to meet an NPC at a certain location, and it took me a long time to finally realize where they were.

The game’s first few quests are all pretty standard for the genre: Plant your first few crops, meet all the townsfolk… When it comes to the tutorial, you’re provided with a very quick text guide of the controls, and the game just frees you to explore however you like. Though there are some things that you can do before you actually get a tutorial to explain it, which can be a bit confusing at first, you’ll soon get the hang of it. Something that feels a bit unnerving is how there doesn’t seem to be any soundtrack that plays for the overworld, so you’re kind of stuck with just hearing the animal chirps and owls hooting.

One thing I found just a bit annoying was how you cannot save in the middle of the day. This isn’t something that’s new, as Stardew Valley did something similar. Still, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of this kind of thing. I would’ve much appreciated if you could just do a quick save that gets you back to the title screen, so you don’t have to completely restart the day due to, say, a power outage, or if your attention is needed elsewhere. Granted, if you’re playing Moonlight Peaks on the Switch, Switch 2, or the Steam Deck, you can just place them into Sleep Mode and quickly come back to it later.

A Game to Unwind and Enjoy

Though my time with Moonlight Peaks was relatively short, I still enjoyed it. It seems the team has been steadily developing it for a long time, and it does look like a promising title. But there are many features that I’ve found that will most likely require some time in the development oven, so I hope the team can address that before release. Moonlight Peaks will be released for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC via Steam, and Google Play on July 7, 2026.