Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Undoubtedly Nintendo's MVP of COVID-19, Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out at the perfect time. While the whole Animal Crossing series is delightful, with cute aesthetics, essentially endless gameplay, and solid life-stimulator gameplay, only this entry released when the closest thing people had to real life was a simulation. The pandemic opened up the perfect little niche for New Horizons to fit into, and helped it to become the second-best-selling game on the Switch practically overnight. I only got around to playing it once people actually started going outside again, but New Horizons still manages to be one of the most fulfilling experiences on the Switch.

I found the game's biggest strength to be its heavy dosage (and healthy balance) of both freedom and structure. Instead of starting the game with an existing village like you do in the previous entries, your new home in New Horizons is an overgrown desert island. There's no infrastructure, and the only other intelligent life is the folks you flew in with. This starting point immediately gives you the freedom to shape the island exactly as you please. With the exception of Tom Nook's square in the middle, you have the power to decide where every building, bridge, plant, and decoration goes. This unprecedented level of control pulled me into the world and helped me to connect with it in a way that I hadn't experienced from this series before. However, you don't get all of that power from the start.

The structure in this game acts almost like a heavily extended tutorial sequence. In order to progress and unlock new customization abilities, you need to work with Tom Nook to develop your island. He gives you a variety of tasks, including crafting furniture, kick-starting local businesses, and inviting villagers to move in. Each of his requests introduces you to the mechanics that govern island life, and the rewards for fulfilling them can greatly expand your means of improving your new home. This approach ensured that I always felt like I had something to work towards, and I don't think I would've been as engaged in the game without this encouragement. I did notice that my focus on Nook's challenges ended up largely sidelining the villagers, which was a little disappointing, but clearly wasn't enough to discourage me from playing.

Of all the mainline Animal Crossing games, New Horizons takes the biggest step away from the established formula, and it seems to have paid off. It's absolutely still recognizable as the little life-and-debt simulator that we all know and love, but the balance leans a lot more in favor of developing the village than enhancing your relationships with its inhabitants. I personally found that to be super engaging, and the experience is helped further by the fact that you practically never run out of things to do in a play session (a frequent issue I had with New Leaf). A lot of uncontrollable factors coincided neatly to make New Horizons into the massive success that it is, but even without those, this is a fantastic game and may even be the definitive entry in the series. Just be warned, starting here may make all of the previous games feel a little lighter on the content.

The game is available for Switch here (as of 3/26/22): https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/animal-crossing-new-horizons-switch/

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