After six long months, gaming’s most important update of 2021 has arrived: a new patch for farming JRPG Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin that lets you dual-wield the game’s adorable pets.
Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is a game about working the land in-between dishing out side-scrolling ass-kickings, and part of that entails caring for animals you discover out in the wild. You can raise ducks to eat the insects living in your rice patties or train cows to plow your plots, but also catch cats and dogs to just look cute and keep you company.
As video game pet authority Can You Pet The Dog? pointed out at release, Sakuna lets you not only pet them but pick them up and carry them around as well. Today’s 1.14 update pushes the boundaries of pet tech even further, allowing you to carry both a dog and a cat simultaneously.
Finally no more playing favorites. Need to water some plants? Want to bring your dog and cat with you? The geniuses at Japanese game studio Edelweiss have you covered. The update also addresses some minor bugs, tweaks the game balancea bit, and offers a few other niceties like allowing your dog to greet you when you come back from adventuring.
Sakuna was one of last 2020’s best surprises. Despite initially being hidden away in Nintendo Japan’s summer Direct, it came to Switch, PS4, and PC in November and proved to be a deft mashup of Harvest Moon and 2D action RPGs like Odin Sphere. While the systems are great, it’s the little design flourishes that help make it pop. Do you really need to dual-wield pets? No. Does it make me want to ignore my real responsibilities to do chores in a video game? Absolutely.