Animal Crossing: New Horizons Review

In a weird way, Animal Crossing: New Horizons had perfect timing. The game came out right before coronavirus worries hit an all-time high. In a time when everyone was confined to their homes, Nintendo released a game that let us envision building a better life on our own island paradise.

New Horizons manages to be the best entry in the Animal Crossing franchise. It is beautiful, refreshing, and relaxing to the point that it may redefine how you view video games.

Not Always Newbie-Friendly

If you’re new to the Animal Crossing games, you probably have a simple question. “What do I do in this game?” The answer sounds a bit like a Zen paradox: you do both “nothing” and “everything.”

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game with very few specific goals. For example, you’ll need to pay Tom Nook back for loans, but that’s really just an excuse to find and collect various animals and treasures around your island.

Beyond basic stuff like that, this game has no real structure. You create your own goals and make your own fun. While that is liberating to plenty of gamers, complete newbies may spend plenty of hours early on trying to figure out what to do.