Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Developer/publisher Nintendo (EPD) Format Switch Release Out now
Switch
Our NookPhone buzzes for the third time in a minute, and we curse our tanuki taskmaster. This so-called getaway doesn’t seem like much of an escape so far – we’re supposed to be starting a new life on a beautiful island, yet we’re spending half the time beholden to the black mirror, much as we would on a typical evening. We frown, too, as we find ourselves huddled over a workbench, combining branches and stones into an axe – and, not long after, watching in horror as it disintegrates, forcing us to forage for the ingredients to make a new one. A life sim that has always done things differently now appears to be content to follow the pack. Achievements and crafting? This isn’t the Animal Crossing we know and love.
Soon enough, we realise that’s no bad thing. True, seasoned players may take longer to adjust to a more goal-oriented entry in a series that has historically let you set your own. But these elements give its notoriously slow early game more structure, while letting you make progress more quickly. The points, or Nook Miles, you earn from a huge variety of activities – many familiar, some new – give you a range of ways to pay off your first debt in record time. There is now tangible value to humdrum jobs. Weed-pulling is no longer a purely aesthetic concern, when they can be used to craft medicine or a jungle floor carpet. Trash can be treasure: fish up a boot and you’ll keep angling for a second to recycle them into a wearable pair, while a tin can becomes a substitute pot for a succulent plant. Another common butterfly might just be your ticket to the bonus miles you need to buy a fountain. Where once we sighed at catching yet another sea bass, we smile, knowing we’re a step towards that kaiju statue we’ve been eyeing for days. And for all that we carp about digital pats on the back for minor accomplishments, the Nook Miles app is a real treat to use. The same goes for the phone itself, from its attractive interface to its cute animations to the weirdly satisfying bleep and accompanying click of haptic feedback when you receive an update.
The DIY focus, meanwhile, is another step in a direction the series has been headed in for a while. A game about joining a community has become one where you play a more active role in building it. So yes, tools will break, but even here you’re rewarded: a snapped shovel is just proof you’ve been working hard, after all. Whether you’re chipping soft- and hardwood from trees with a stone axe, whacking a rock for stones and clay, or simply picking up sticks to craft a new fishing rod, these survival-game mechanics are a means to an end far beyond simply preventing one. You’re doing this not to survive, but to live – and to give your animal friends a better life, too. Indeed, you’re responsible for getting new residents set up on the island, picking out plots of land for Nook to build new homes, as you fulfil furniture requirements (interior and exterior) before they’ll move in. Eventually, you’ll have shops at which you can buy everything you need, but you’ll feel a greater sense of pride in not only assembling a gift by hand, but using a customisation kit to add that personal touch – even if you’re merely following a recipe that washed up inside a bottle or fell from a balloon you popped with your slingshot. No longer do you have to rely on an alpaca handyman to change the wood and fabric on your bed, while more items than ever can be modified to suit your tastes.
That includes the island itself, because terraforming is now possible. Some will be uneasy about the series’ gradual shift from a community to which you must adapt to a world that bends to your will. Yet adding bridges and ramps always feels like it’s to the benefit of every inhabitant, even if the changes you make are with your own convenience in mind. Besides, even as you disrupt nature, New Horizons encourages a healthy respect for it. Nowhere is this more apparent than the museum, which has had a frankly astonishing makeover; if before it felt like a glorified trophy cabinet, here it’s an absolute joy to spend time in, with bonus details added as you donate more exhibits. As ever, your reward for everything you submit is a barrage of enthusiastic detail from nerdy curator Blathers, who – and this is really saying something – is more delightful company than ever. It’s a reminder that the series has always had some of the warmest, wittiest writing in videogames, and it says much that the arrival of returning characters prompts the same kind of excited flutter as unexpectedly bumping into an old friend. The newcomers are instantly lovable, too: witness tiny turnip seller Daisy Mae trying to remember the spiel passed on by the retired Sow Joan.
There’s more. So much more, in fact, that it’s tempting to simply list what’s new. At times the improvements sound like patch notes. Pockets now hold 20 items (40 when fully expanded). Household objects can be moved in half-steps. Villagers will call your name and run over to you. These may sound insignificant, but in a series that invites us to celebrate life’s mundanities, such small things are potential game-changers. Being thrilled by animals reacting to museum exhibits might sound ridiculous, but Animal Crossing rewires your brain in such a way that it all comes to matter. And while the NookPhone and the gamification of its quotidian tasks brings it closer to our always-connected world, it still, perhaps more than ever, represents an escape. To play
New Horizons is to retreat to a fairer, kinder place, where even the supposed bad guy is a philanthropist who gives you interest-free loans you can pay off at your leisure.
Animal Crossing has always been a pleasure; never has it felt quite so essential.
The arrival of returning characters prompts the same kind of excited flutter as bumping into an old friend