Disney Dreamlight Valley Succeeds Where Some Disney Movies Never Could

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 13, 2025 11 Views 8 Min Read
Disney Dreamlight Valley Succeeds Where Some Disney Movies Never Could



Though Disney Dreamlight Valley gives players the opportunity to befriend their favorite heroes from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, the game also gives players the chance to redeem some of their favorite villains. While some players may choose not to redeem these villains, Disney Dreamlight Valley’s approach to reforming these iconic antagonists ultimately succeeds in ways that its source material does not.

Disney Dreamlight Valley’s roster of villains is lacking in comparison to its overload of protagonists and comedic sidekicks. While it’s understandable that villains are taking the back seat to heroes, there’s certainly space on Disney Dreamlight Valley’s character roster for a few more villains. Players can find six villains in the Valley, including Mother Gothel, Ursula, Scar, Gaston, Jafar, and Hades. Maleficent will join Disney Dreamlight Valley in the summer of 2025 thanks to the second chapter of the game’s Storybook Vale expansion pass.

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Disney Keeps Trying to Redeem Villains in Film

The role and portrayal of villains in Pixar and Disney films have also changed since Walt Disney Animation Studios released its first feature in 1937. While the standard archetypes of wicked stepparents, heartless monarchs, and good old-fashioned baddies are still present in modern Disney films, villains have received more nuanced portrayals in recent years.

One of the most notable sympathetic villains is Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon. While the film primarily follows Raya and the magical dragon Sisu as they try to restore the world of Kumandra, Namaari is the perfect bridge between Raya and the divisive chiefs who don’t want to see the reunification of Kumandra. Namaari was raised her whole life to be distrustful, but eventually learns to trust Raya and they ultimately reunite Kumandra.

While this is the most blatant example of modern Disney making its villains more sympathetic, other attempts, like Professor Callaghan from Big Hero 6, have fallen flat. Disney films in the studio’s Revival Era have also heavily relied on twist villains, like Prince Hans in Frozen or Bellwether in Zootopia. The quick shift between good to evil can be seen as jarring to some viewers, ultimately making the twist villain trend less popular. This makes Namaari’s shift from evil to redeemed more satisfying, as she is given a full arc for this transformation.

With more time with its audience, Disney Dreamlight Valley is able to give the redemption treatment to villains that their original films were unable to provide. This makes Disney Dreamlight Valley ultimately more successful at redeeming villains, though there are some interesting details that help the game achieve this.

How Disney Dreamlight Valley Succeeds Where the Studio Fails

The most obvious aspects are time and player engagement. Players are able to decide how much effort they are willing to put into leveling up their friendship between villains. Since all characters in Disney Dreamlight Valley have ten levels of Friendship Rewards, players can easily gauge how much effort they are willing to put into specific characters.

Additionally, setting up this redemption as a friendship in itself makes the relationship between players and a villain much more personal. When viewing a film, audiences don’t have a direct relationship with the characters they are viewing on screen. Disney Dreamlight Valley villains like Hades give players the opportunity to “get to know” all their favorite Disney characters, making relationships seem more intimate and for villains to seem more three-dimensional.

While some players may not be so keen on redeeming Disney Dreamlight Valley’s villains, the Friendship Rewards available for these characters may change their minds. Friendship Rewards are a great way to earn new motifs, furniture, and clothing items without spending any Moonstones. Therefore, players might put labor into friendships with villains simply for the free goodies.

Disney Dreamlight Valley proves that the only thing separating villains from redemption is time and attention. With another villain headed to the game this summer, hopefully, more villains will find redemption in Disney Dreamlight Valley.

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