Animal Crossing kept up with all the twists and turns of 2020

Animal Crossing: New Horizons came at precisely the right time — right at the beginning of global quarantine lockdowns. The Nintendo game would have been huge without the pandemic. But more people at home with less to do meant diving into a world that was everything the one we were living in wasn’t, an island getaway where the only problem is a mortgage payment — interest-free! — paid off in Bells. For a while, it felt harder to find someone who wasn’t playing New Horizons.

It felt like there was New Horizons overlap in most aspects of my life, which was surprising. I found people in the stationery community making stuff inside and outside of New Horizons; I found fountain pen people analyzing the in-game writing set. For a while, these sorts of interactions felt as if they happened naturally. They made sense, felt authentic. People saw ways to play the game differently, and they did — New Horizons was a massive success particularly because of all the “alternative” ways to play. Not only could I hang out with my real-life friends and colleagues to collect shooting stars or trade DIY recipes, but I could attend a birthday party for a friend in Singapore, something I otherwise would never have been able to do, pandemic or not.

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