Why Everyone Is Obsessed With ‘Animal Crossing’ Right Now
The therapeutic effects of building your own world
Maybe, like me, you’ve seen some bright, cartoony landscapes dotting your Twitter feed lately. Liberally sprinkled among the grim coronavirus tweets are posts bursting with enthusiasm. Excitement. Fanaticism, in a few cases. Suddenly, it seems, people can not stop talking about Animal Crossing.
In a stroke of perfect timing, the same week many of us began our coronavirus isolations, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a revamped version of the social simulation game first released in 2001. The premise is simple: You build your home on a deserted island, populate it with cute anthropomorphic animal characters, plan out the community, and then just live your life. You can decorate your house. You can befriend your neighbors. You can explore.
A few days into our new, socially distant life, my husband downloaded the game on our Switch and encouraged me to try it. I told him no. I’ve never been a gamer: I usually roll my eyes when he hunkers down after dinner to play Zelda or when my six-year-old begs me for more time to beat his Mario level. I’ve always seen video games as a distraction from reality, a retreat from the colors and sounds of the three-dimensional world.
