Animal Crossing must be a really tricky video game franchise to market. It’s a chill life sim about rearranging your house and catching bugs, so it doesn’t really demo well at large trade shows. And its emphasis on charming social interactions and darkly funny economic schemes arguably appeals more to adults than hyperactive children. So leading up to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I simultaneously feel like I don’t know anything and that I don’t need to hear any more.
However, the Nintendo Switch game is just one month away. So it’s probably for the best that we did get one last deep dive into the animal island paradise.
It feels almost appropriate that the release of a new Animal Crossing, the most expansive and beautiful version yet thanks to being on a modern home console, comes not too long after the series finale of The Good Place. Spoiler alert, but that show’s final vision of heaven offered folks a perfect, magical, changing society of friends that lasted however long they wanted it. And it ended on their own terms, too. That’s Animal Crossing.
In New Horizons that heaven seems even more ethereal since your life now consists of an endless island vacation (where you can finally change your skin tone without tanning). We got a recap of previously known details like crafting items, setting up camp, and using your phone. The Direct provided more details on navigation, an in-game rewards system, and changing the island’s very landscape. We also learned about the return of Animal Crossing mainstays like the museum, amiibo and QR support, various shops, and a proper house to live in.
Animal Crossing is a very social game. But Nintendo’s approach to socializing is, let’s say, peculiar. New Horizons lets up to eight players exist on the same island. You can restrict how much destruction visitors can inflict on your trees. Actually talking to people requires you to bust out the seldom used Switch online app. And because each island is tied to each console, you won’t be able to restore save data unless you use some limited arcane workaround that isn’t coming until later.
Just rattling off a bunch of Animal Crossing features feels like missing the point, though. You’re meant to just sit back and soak it in, perhaps on the gorgeous new pastel Nintendo Switch. Tom Nook is about to get enough money to buy his way into the Democratic primary.
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