Animal Crossing at its most basic level is a life simulator, similar to The Sims. It defies expectations in the strangest way. By describing the game, it will sound boring and tedious. This is how I felt before playing the game. It’s a game one has to play to understand how it could be fun. Animal Crossing New Horizons provided me with fun addictive gameplay and never ceased to impress me or lose my interest.

The main gameplay loop of Animal Crossing is extremely exciting and what the player spends their time on is ever-changing. You start off the day with an announcement to the town of new things that are happening on the island. Completing the same tasks every day sounds like it could get boring. It gets the player invested in the island and the villagers so that it doesn’t feel like they’re working. This is where Animal Crossing truly succeeds. The game is extremely adorable and charming. The game puts the player into its world and makes every day in the game feel special. 

The story of Animal Crossing is simple: the player is a villager who goes to an island. When players first get to the island it is uninhabited and covered in weeds and trees. With the help of Tom Nook, the main NPC (Non-Player Character), Players talk to throughout the game. The player can build a house on the island, collect fish to build a museum, increase the number of residences by building more houses and upgrade their town. With the end goal of getting their island to have a three-star rating, most of this happens naturally as they play.

The game has the player exploring the island to see everything they can do which includes planting trees, fishing, planting flowers, building bridges and inclines to get around the island easier and expanding their house. They can earn Nook Miles which helps in purchasing more items by completing daily tasks and earning bells, the currency in Animal Crossing, by selling items at the shop. The main goal of Animal Crossing is to make the island the best it can be and working to add things and improve it overall. As the game goes on the town grows as more shops, people and items become available. The player comes to care for their island and wants to keep going back to improving the island everyday.

The game has added various new features that make it different from previous iterations. Some of which include a pole vault to get over the water, the ability to make paths on the island, new villagers and the DIY system that allows the player to create custom clothes for your character. The new Animal Crossing also has a multiplayer feature that allows the player to go to their friend’s islands and connect with them in-game.

Animal Crossing has become very successful since its release, growing to be the most popular game in the franchise and outselling all other games in the series combined.

There are many reasons for this happening, the most important being that when it was released with nothing to do in quarantine, many picked up this game to escape to their own deserted island. It was on the Nintendo Switch, which is a top-selling console and the first home console to have Animal Crossing since the Wii in 2008. The gaining popularity of the series and the timing of the game’s release was perfect and has made Animal Crossing a success worldwide, with console shortages caused by this game.

The game costs $60 and is well worth the price. So far into my playthrough, I’ve put 70 hours into the game and feel like I have barely touched the surface of the content offered in it. I’m always finding new cool things that I can do in the game. Every day that I log on and get to see my island there’s always something fun and investing to do whether it’s fishing, building or spicing up my island. I always feel like I’m making my island the best it can be.