Free Animal Crossing Inspired PS4 Game Pledges Profits for Charity

There’s a new free-to-play PlayStation 4 game named Paraiso Island, and its proceeds will be going to charity. Creator (and philanthropist) Luc Bernard tells us that 30 per cent of the title’s profits will be donated to the All Hands and Hearts organisation, which is helping the Caribbean to rebuild after recent tragedies. There’s a Bahamas Relief add-on pack where 100 per cent of the sales will be pledged.

As for the title itself, it’s inspired by Nintendo’s uber-popular Animal Crossing franchise. “It's a daily island simulator,” explains Bernard, “where you get to do different things: run a restaurant, run a hotel, decorate your island however you want, or just run errands for the different habitants of the island.”

He continues: “I did go a lot weirder in terms of the characters that inhabit it. Many you might even think are a bit insane: Senorita Bomba is obsessed with explosions and making anything explode, Fuerto just keeps on living on everyone else's sofas and all he wants to do is work out and take women out on dates. And then, as an update coming out in February, is DJ PiggyBanker who is a banker going through a midlife crisis who has decided to become a DJ and starts running the Pyggy Fest (which you can imagine is inspired by the Fyre Festival) where everything goes wrong.”

While work continues in earnest on Paraiso Island, it’s not stopped Bernard from looking to the future, and he has other charity drives in mind. “One of the next games I've been working on is an Action RPG inspired by Nigerian folklore targeted towards the African market, but it will also release worldwide. We are also working with a team in Nigeria for this too, so it can be done properly, like the writers and actors.”