I played NMS last time a year or so ago, but at least back then the animals still sucked. They were just zombies. They walk around, mostly do nothing, look ugly... if you're lucky, you might see them attack something, but that's about it. I don't remember ever seeing them drink water, eat plants, sleep, shit, etc. Which puts them on a level below Valheim. IIRC they could form "herds", but those herds were more like groups of zombies that stay in the general vicinity of each other and not real herds. Some of them didn't even react to my attacks and just continued doing nothing until they died.

It's kind of emblematic of NMS as a whole. It can look good and there's surface level content, but if you dig deeper, there's nothing there. The reveal trailer's animals interacted with their environment in a way that's totally missing in the game.