We don’t often have occasion to cover Spry Fox here in the MMO world, but readers might remember that way back in 2021, the Cozy Grove/Road Not Taken developer announced that it was hiring for a “non-violent MMO project,” which immediately caught our attention. Then it got picked up for publishing by Epic Games and Spry Fox itself was acquired by Netflix. Through all of that upheaval, the indie studio promised that work on its MMO would continue. In fact, as of last fall, we had a codename – Project Friendship – as well as the start of testing.
As of GDC, we now have a lot more than that. Last night, Spry Fox announced the game is called Spirit Crossing. I’m not seeing the literal term MMO being used in the new materials (though multiplayer was being worked on last fall). Actually, if I had two words for the trailer, it’s “Miyazaki Palia.” That’s not a complaint, either.
“We Foxes have been working on our next project for well over four years, and we are thrilled to finally announce Spirit Crossing to the world!” Spry Fox says. “Spirit Crossing is a cozy, cooperative life-sim focused on friendship and community. Journey to a world where you can decorate your home, build with your friends, ride on a Fluffalo train, or even join a dance party.”
The video invites players to sign up for early access, but the link still goes to the closed alpha testing form from last fall, which is presumably the same thing now, as the team says it’s “working toward an Alpha playtest in the spring.” Note that while the sign-ups mention mobile play, Spry Fox has in the past suggested it’ll operate on PC and console too.
