Disney Dreamlight Valley’s next expansion could transform its daily routine with rideable mounts
We were shown Wishblossom Ranch ahead of its November release, and there’s some big changes here
I generally stay professional and keep my fanboy cards close to my chest when I’m meeting with a developer, but sometimes the mask slips.
Most players have a live service game that they’ll swear by, and for me that game is Disney Dreamlight Valley. Granted, EA Sports FC and WWE 2K titles come and go every year, but for three years now (to the exact day, in fact – it entered early access on September 6, 2022 – Dreamlight Valley has been a regular fixture in my daily life.
We’re a big Disney household, and while other Disney games have held my attention for a while before dropping off – sorry Disney Speedstorm, your penny-pinching got too far when your split your seasonal content into three separate paid waves – kudos must go to Gameloft Montreal for crafting a game that my daughter and I continue to play after all this time.
One of the main reasons it’s kept our attention for so long is that Dreamlight Valley is fair. The game was originally planned to be free-to-play when it left early access, but Gameloft eventually decided to scrap this idea and make it a paid title. This essentially killed the temptation to introduce any of the more predatory microtransaction methods a free-to-play game might have implemented.
As a result, while there’s still seasonal content with the typical paid ‘battle pass’ tier you’d expect from a live service game, there’s also a steady stream of free content which, combined with a healthy helping of missions, makes it very much the ‘Animal Crossing but with Disney characters and quests’ experience I was hoping it would be ever since it was first announced.
Further reading
For those who are more seriously into the game, there have been two paid expansions. A Rift in Time launched in December 2023 added a new location called Eternity Isle and some new characters – Rapunzel, Jafar, Gaston and EVE – along with a host of new missions, ingredients, recipes, furniture and clothing.
This was then followed by The Storybook Vale, a two-part expansion which launched in November 2024 and July 2025 and added more new locations, features and items as well as the arrival of Merida, Flynn, Hades, Maleficent and Aurora.
My daughter and I have thoroughly enjoyed both of these expansions, so when I was offered the chance to check out a hands-off demonstration of the third one, Wishblossom Ranch, and have its new features demonstrated to me, I couldn’t possibly refuse. For my kid’s sake, you understand.
As previously stated, professionalism is key in these situations, and so despite my family’s love for Dreamlight Valley I didn’t give much more away than a “yes, I’m familiar with the game”, in response to a question usually asked to the press when seeing an expansion or a sequel. It was when I saw what was being added that the fanboy slipped out.
As the name suggests, Wishblossom Ranch adds horses to the game. Animal companions have been there since the start, but they’ve always tended to be smaller creatures who walk alongside you. This new expansion marks the first time you can actually get rideable mounts.
There’s a stable where you can store a number of horses, and you also have the ability to customise these horses by naming them and choosing the colour of their coat, mane and the like. You can also choose different saddles and various other cosmetic items for your horse, which obviously acts as another opportunity for Gameloft to add new items on a regular basis through in-game shops, events, battle passes and the like.
As with the other animal companions in Dreamlight Valley, Wishblossom Ranch will also feature a mix of standard, customisable horses and ‘real’ horses from Disney movies. The first of these will be Maximus from Tangled, but given the number of famous Disney steeds I’d be stunned if further down the line we didn’t see the likes of Philippe from Beauty and the Beast, Sven from Frozen and maybe even Bullseye from Toy Story (though given how Woody and Buzz are true-to-size in this game, maybe not).
New characters are naturally also going to be included in Wishblossom Ranch, and I was shown the first two of them, Snow White and Tinker Bell. More are coming, I was assured, but Gameloft is keeping its cards close to its chest until nearer to the expansion’s November launch. And yes, more new recipes are coming, I was also told.
All these new additions are all well and good, but as much as the addition of rideable mounts is lovely enough, it’s what they can actually do which got me the most excited for the new expansion. If you’re reading this and you also play the game regularly, I just need to say two words to pique your interest too: pumpkin farming.
From early on in the expansion you’ll be able to ride your horse, which obviously has its own benefits. Until now, running around the Valley has been quite a slow affair, and the only way to speed this up is to eat special meals which increase your energy beyond its maximum. When you have this ‘well fed’ bonus you run a bit faster and can also use a sort of gliding sprint technique to move faster, but this decreases your energy meter and stops when the excess energy runs out.
By riding your horse around the valley, you can pick up a gallop that allows you to travel around much quicker, and from what I could tell you don’t need to have extra ‘well fed’ energy to do this. This alone will save a lot of time for some players.
The developers showing me the game explained how how work had gone into making sure that riding a horse around the Valley didn’t feel any more clumsy or awkward than simply walking around it normally – a godsend for players who have built intricately detailed Valleys that may have been a struggle to navigate around with a larger character.
Even better, though, is the extra abilities your horse can learn over time. I was shown some other abilities which are acquired later in the game – it’s not yet clear if this is through levelling up the horse like you do with other companions, or by acquiring them in specific quests, but the main takeaway is that your horse can eventually do more than just gallop around.
One of these new abilities is stomping large dirt holes in the ground. While players can dig a standard hole which takes up a single square on the map’s invisible grid, a horse can eventually perform a stomp move which makes a larger group of holes appear at once.
This was what made my eyes open wider. Anyone who plays Dreamlight Valley seriously knows that the easier way to make money is by farming pumpkins. A pumpkin seed costs 275 coins, and a harvested pumpkin sells for 664. Bring a companion with the Gardening ability with you when you harvest them and they’ll throw extra pumpkins at you too, meaning you can make a lot of extra money off that single seed.
Naturally, this means greedier types – um, such as me – have turned whole sections of their Valley into pumpkin farms, which involves digging a bunch of holes, planting a load of seeds, watering them all and harvesting them all. This is a very lengthy process, and on more than one evening I’ve literally fallen asleep on the couch with the A button held down on my Xbox controller as my character’s been planting pumpkin seeds.
The ability to stomp multiple holes at once is a big time-saver for players who carrying out these farming schemes, but the reality is that players who regularly farm pumpkins only really need to dig holes once then keep planting seeds in them each time they harvest. It’s watering them which really takes up time.
That’s why, when I was shown a horse walking through a field of crops with a watering can in its mouth, quickly watering all the plants it walked over, the mask finally slipped.
Watering multiple crops is quite a fiddly process in Dreamlight Valley, but this now looks like it’s going to be as simple as just walking over them. Granted, you still lose energy as you usually do, but keep some food with you and it’s still going to be a much faster process. I had to show my hand.
“Thank you so much,” I blurted out. “You’ve just saved me hours of pumpkin farming time.” Showing bias is one thing, but telling a developer you’re someone who not only plays their game but regularly carries out a time-consuming, repetitive task to make easy money in it – something some of the players consider a cheap exploit – should probably be a no-no, but instead they simply laughed and said “you’re welcome”. Don’t worry, pumpkin farmers, it looks like we’re still fine.
Wishblossom Ranch is coming in November 2025, and Gameloft has a showcase planned for October 15 where these horse abilities will no doubt be demonstrated in more depth, and we might even see some of those unannounced new characters.
What’s clear from the half-hour demonstration I was shown, however, is that existing fans of the game will not only be happy with the new area, the new characters and the addition of rideable mounts, but the new quality of life features those mounts bring which could really make the game a much more efficient and enjoyable experience for those who have made Dreamlight Valley part of their daily routine.
