For Christmas this year, one of the things I asked for was games for the switch I receive for my birthday. These included mostly Jackbox games to play with my friends, but I also received the game Animal Crossing New Horizons. Some of my friends had previously said they enjoy the game, so I decided to give it a try. Little did I know it would quickly become my newest obsession.
The first Animal Crossing game was released in 2001, and there have since been multiple games released for each Nintendo console. In the newest game, Animal Crossing New Horizons, you play as a character who has just moved to an uninhabited island. In this game, you work to create a populous island for villagers and guests by crafting items to display, catching bugs, fishing and decorating your island. The ultimate goal is really just to have fun and create an island that you enjoy.
There are many aspects of this game that people greatly enjoy. This includes collecting all the items to fill your museum by catching bugs, fishing, deep-sea diving, digging up fossils, or collecting items of a specific theme to put on your island. There are many who play the game and decorate their island to a specific theme. I have seen people decorate their island to be farmcore, citycore, kidcore, cottagecore, or almost anything you could imagine. I am currently working to turn my island into an amusement park and let me tell you this aspect of the game is much harder than I expected it to be. Collecting and creating specific items to fit your theme can be hard, with over 23,000 items and 1,800 recipes, you often don’t get the ones you really want. This also requires proficient design skills to properly design and place items.
Another aspect of this game that made it so popular is the ability to travel to other islands and ask villagers to build their houses on your island. The activity is known as villager hunting, and many people take it very seriously. There are over 400 possible villagers and only 10 can live on your island at any given time, so finding your favorites can be a true feat.
My all-time favorite thing about this game is that it changes with the current time. So, as it gets later in the day, your island will get dark, leading to different animals and fish being present. This also happens as the months and seasons change.
If you are looking for a new game to try out as a new hobby or in your free time, I highly recommend checking out Animal Crossing New Horizons to keep you busy. There is no right or wrong way to play so feel free to play as often or as little as you like without the pressure of winning or losing. I mean, there is really no way to lose in a game where you pay your massive debt to a raccoon named Tom Nook and slave away finding animals and artifacts for an owl named Blathers to put in his exceptionally large museum.