Weathered dark-wood panelling, steaming baths that evaporate away the day's troubles, diverse clientele from faraway realms seeking rest after untold travels; there are many identifiers of what can be called the Studio Ghibli or, more specifically, the 'Spirited Away' aesthetic, and it's a perfect palette for games in the cozy and management genres.
Plenty of games have been inspired by the Ghibli style over the years, but few embrace it quite as wholly as Hotel Galactic, the upcoming management game from Ancient Forge that sees you build a spa hotel for an endless procession of interplanetary clientele. Set on an island drifting through the cosmos, the game sees you harvesting resources, building pastures for livestock, and, of course, building out the space tourist retreat of your dreams with modular building mechanics.
You'll be cooking unique dishes for your guests, using the finest ingredients nature's bounty can offer, decking out rooms with handcrafted furnishings, and designing the hotel in whatever way you see fit, while ensuring it's sensibly designed for guests to flow through effortlessly.
It's a big undertaking, but you won't be going it alone. Over time, you'll get to recruit companions from across the cosmos, each of them representing the artistic creativity and visual diversity the devs have poured into the game. From anthropomorphic frog-people (who make great chefs) and deerfolk, to the peace-and-plant-loving Toravis, these eccentric denizens of the galaxy are ready to get to work.
As well as assigning priority queues and tasks so your hotel's running like clockwork, you'll get to witness workers pass down their skills and expertise to new members of the team, creating a sense of continuity and community among the workforce. The guests coming through your doors are equally eclectic, many of them with stories to tell and friendships waiting to be fostered.
Something that really pops about Hotel Galactic is its aesthetic. Beyond its gorgeously Ghibli-inspired art style, the game deploys a hybrid 2D-3D perspective. Whether you're building or in the midst of ferrying guests through your hotel, you can switch between the two views, giving you the best of both worlds: the clarity and simplicity of the 2D plane on the one hand, and the more immersive 3D angles on the other, which also give you more granular control over placement of objects.
While the core loop very much leans into the relaxing, the game isn't without its tribulations. Later parts will see you delving underground in search of new materials, creatures, and extra room to build out into, while mysterious figures with unknown intentions watch your progress from a distance. Like every great Ghibli movie, Hotel Galactic imbues its dreamy fairytale magic with a healthy dose of mystery to keep players curious and engaged.
But even Spirited Away's esteemed Bathhouse had some external investment (probably), and to that end Ancient Forge will be hosting a Kickstarter campaign to help lay the foundations for Hotel Galactic. You can head over to Kickstarter now and set a reminder to be notified when the campaign launches, and add Hotel Galactic to your Steam wishlist. Contributing to the Kickstarter will also nab you some exclusive assets that won't be available for those buying the retail version!
To keep up with the game's development journey, you can follow it on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, join the Discord community, or check out the trailers for this and other Ancient Forge games on YouTube. The Hotel Galactic awaits new management. Are you up to the task?
