What Animal Crossing Gave Us in our Time of Need

Animal Crossing: New Horizon debuted at a time in which the world was dealing with the outbreak of an unknown pandemic. COVID-19 arose and drastically altered our way of life. Suddenly, our traditional forms of communication and ways of being were fragmented. We could not engage in face-to-face interactions, instead we were isolated in the confines of our own homes and unsure of when we would see others in a physical setting again. The uncertainty of Covid-19 led many people to feel scared. Scared of contraction, scared of loss, scared for their careers, and scared of the unknown. This combined with the lack of traditional forms of interaction and communication, led many people to seek solace in a game that bolstered the connections that they recently lost. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, with its colorful characters, and relaxing gameplay, gave people an outlet for their pain, their anxiety, and a boredom brought on from a lack of social life.

Exploding onto the videogame scene in late March 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons provided an escape to the rigors of reality. Soon after it was released, references to the game were everywhere from social media to late night talk shows. As the latest installment in a long series, New Horizons gave the world a sense of togetherness that was sorely missing. By the end of April, it had surpassed 13 million in sales, enroute to nearly 36 million sold in just one year. The world was captivated by the relaxing nature of its gameplay and the sense of community it created.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to downsize, move to an island, and live a simple life in paradise? This is the hook of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This runs counter to the basic ideology of America. In our capitalistic society, we place high value on working, generating wealth, and gaining status. Working is so valued that many people hesitate to take time off and routinely work while sick or injured. American’s take pride in having a strong work ethic, even when that work ethic isn’t beneficial to their own well-being. While some of these themes are not completely absent in Animal Crossing, the game resists this ideology by offering its players freedom of choice. Money is important, but it is not the end all to player enjoyment and satisfaction. Hours and days can be spent without spending any of the games in-game currency, something that is very different from reality. Players are encouraged to go at their own pace and share their creations with others. It’s a game that plays best when you are expressing your creativity and collaborating with neighbors for the betterment of your island. These themes can often be seen as secondary necessities in our society. Playing Animal Crossing is about finding your own path and making connections, something that we all needed during the early days of the pandemic.

The early days of at home “quarantine” robbed us of most of our normal modes of communication. People no longer gathered and spoke to each other face to face. Physical touch and even aspects of body language, suffered from the use of masks that was becoming commonplace. We were social beings whose only outlet became social media. Gone were the happy hours, the exhibits, the concerts, and the sporting events. Our ability for expression was limited to the digital space, but many of those spaces fostered as many negative feelings as they could hope to relieve. Animal Crossing, by way of impeccable timing, became the ultimate distraction and expression self that we could hope for.

In trying to cope, people were looking for outlets when most traditional forms of interaction were no longer available. Animal Crossing was a fun escape that shunned many of the negative or violent views scattered across media, for a game that focused on cutesy characters and a relaxing aesthetic. Iman Khan for the New York Times wrote “There are no high scores, vampire Nazis or final bosses. The game is played at a relaxed pace, in which the player can do as much or as little as they want on any given day.” This was exactly what people needed when the world around them was crumbling. The game spoke to them and communicated a sense of calm amidst a sea of storms. Everything Animal Crossing does, from its character design to its mellow relaxing music, signifies an inviting atmosphere. The characters speak a gibberish language that is as endearing as it is confusing, other villagers will randomly give you items or even money, and many items that once cost you money, can be built if you find the right recipe card. This is far different from the daily grind that we live in. A world filled with people moving about in silence with tiny earbuds in, or typically more concerned about what they can receive than what they can get. It’s a world that is more concerned about the community getting ahead, than getting ahead of the community, a refreshing reprieve from the idealized capitalistic society we live in.

While the main gameplay of Animal Crossing is a single player experience, the game is one that is meant to be shared. We are social creatures and no matter the culture you claim, we thrive on communication. It is built into the fabric of who we are to share our lives with others.These channels of communication helped to bring us together during a time of relative uncertainty. The game’s meaning can be deciphered in various ways, and that is the beauty of the playing experience. You make your own story in Animal Crossing; you speak your own truth. You are the author of a digital landscape, and your choices tell the story of you. Few games have the subtle messaging that Animal Crossing does, but during the early days of the pandemic, the world was listening.

The sharable aspect of the game helped to create a place for people who were isolated. In an article on The Guardian Keza MacDonald quotes Hisashi Nogami a producer on the game who talks about how the game drives you to share your accomplishments with others. At the heart of Animal Crossing is a game about communication, stated Aya Kyogoku who worked on the game. Animal Crossing became a constant topic on social media, with people posting images of their islands, talking about turnip prices, or passing out codes for people to visit. This communication became so commonplace that celebrities even joined in the fun, with many visiting, or occasionally opening their islands to others on social media. The game features an in game camera system that encourages you to take photos of your world to share. Players can invite others either locally, or online to share their islands, and experiences together. You could even create dream settings for your island, creating a fixed state to showcase your island with the perfect sunset, seasonal foliage, or weather showing. Playing Animal Crossing became a shared experience, and everyone could relate because we were all in it together. It became a refuge, a place for community and comradery. There were even reports of people creating in-game weddings, to share with friends and family when Covid restrictions called for them to cancel their in-person weddings. Animal Crossing was bringing people together, fostering our societal need to share our lives with one another, and giving people a sense of normalcy through the turmoil.

The origins of Animal Crossing began in Japan on the Nintendo 64 platform in 2001. It has since had multiple iterations on various Nintendo platforms. This newest title released on March 20, 2020, for the Nintendo Switch, roughly a week after most states enacted Coronavirus guidelines. Each game in the series has had its own hook to the gameplay, but the premise has mostly stayed the same. Your objective is typically to complete tasks around an island, and customizing it to your liking. In ‘New Horizons,’ you’re tasked with creating a community. People have really taken to the extra freedom of designing the island from the ground up. This extra layer created an extra sense of ownership that truly resonated with people around the world.

It’s hard to believe that this little game about decorating spaces and collecting items could be a hub to such communication, but for people pouring in hours a day, it was just that. When I visited someone’s island, I got a sense of who they were. As my in-game avatar stepped off of the plane and began to explore, visiting islands that told the story of who their creators were. Some were highly decorated, and meticulously designed, with everything having a place. Some were more loosely structured, conveying the laid-back vibes of their designers. Our love of sharing our shelf and experiences are on full display here, never leaving a moment in which you’re not waiting to share that next in-game moment with another person. In Animal Crossing you are able to create the world as you see it, following a long history of cultures passing down what they experienced for future generations. This is also where the game gives a commentary on our capitalistic, work obsessed ideology. Being able to play this game the way you want is counterculture to our everyday lives that give us little choice in the matter of how to survive. In Animal Crossing, maybe the most important thing to you is gaining money to design and decorate your town to magazine cover status. Or perhaps, your desire could be to explore the world, gathering every collectible possible and completing your museum. No matter how you decide to play, the game offers the same amount of enjoyment and community. The game hardly forces you to choose between these approaches, a luxury that we seldom have in the real world. While some buildings and tools require money to build, earning money is a passive thing in the Animal Crossing world. Your time is spent forging your own path and making connections with friends, a small taste of an idyllic life.

My time with Animal Crossing was just what I needed in 2020. The joy and discovery allowed me to take my mind from what was happening in the world. I’ll never forget those days playing the game and sharing similar experiences with people around the world. We sought solace and entertainment at the same time, creating experiences, and sharing with each other. I’ll remember the early days of visiting other islands to collect different fruit varieties, or searching for spider islands. Most of all, I’ll remember it for the joy that my wife and I received while we were stuck in an apartment together for hours on end. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and reminds us that sometimes it’s okay to stop and smell the roses.