The video game has become as synonymous with lockdown as sourdough starters, DIY haircuts and pints over Zoom. Photo: Francesca Lang
Yesterday I went fruit picking, strolled on the beach, chatted to a savvy raccoon and visited my friends.
But I wasn't breaking lockdown rules—I was indulging in one of the biggest coronavirus trends, Animal Crossing. The video game has become as synonymous with lockdown as sourdough starters, DIY haircuts and pints over Zoom. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released on the gaming console Nintendo Switch in March just as we all sealed ourselves away. And it’s since become one of the Internet’s favourite hobbies.
Like previous iterations of the game, the concept of New Horizons is simple: your character lives in a wholesome world of anthropomorphic animal characters including Tom Nook, the enterprising raccoon who runs the show. As well as completing tasks like building houses and helping residents, you catch fish and bugs, dig up fossils for the local museum, grow flowers, pick fruit and decorate your house.
But one of the key features of the game is that you can also visit friends and strangers on their islands, bonding a community of lonely, frustrated people in lockdown all over the world.
I bought Animal Crossing as a treat for myself during the bizarre second week of isolation. I was (and still am) at my family home in Yorkshire after a weekend visit coincided with the enforcement of lockdown measures. Miles from everything that linked me to adult life, I felt a sense of relief that I was healthy and safe, but a frustration that I couldn't do anything. Work was slower than usual, I had no social life and I'd ploughed through all the good things on Netflix. I felt stagnant.
I was just in time for my purchase too—almost all retailers had sold out a few days later. Booting it up felt comforting, like I was visiting a place I'd been before. I was a fan of the earlier 2006 Nintendo version, Animal Crossing: Wild World, but I was ten when I started playing it, and never got much done. I was ready to play the game properly this time and fully commit to maximising each adorable opportunity.
Animal Crossing topped the game charts in the UK and Japan when it was first released and seven weeks later it's still topping Nintendo's game chart. So why do we love it so much? For me, it's a combination of the game's wholesome content and steady pace. At a time when I can't predict what's next, Animal Crossing offers a tiny piece of certainty that keeps me levelled, even if it takes place in a fantasy world.
The premise of Animal Crossing is that you move to a deserted island and are tasked with making it your own. Building paths, picking fruit and digging up weeds gives me a sense of achievement that I'm otherwise not getting. And when I visit my real-life friends in their towns, it offers an—albeit bizarre—slice of normality. It's zero exertion but plenty of gain.
For others it extends more than that. Francesca Lang, 23, from Barnsley said it’s helped her mental health during lockdown.
She suffers from anxiety but the soothing pace and characters have helped stop her mind racing about the world outside: "Because I was so busy with it, I stopped waiting anxiously for the Covid-19 update every day or constantly checking my phone." She’s particularly enjoyed how the game has generated a sense of community, even when she’s stuck at home: "I talk to my friends more, we visit each other and send letters… I joined the Animal Crossing group on Facebook and it's a whole community across the world helping each other.”
Harriet Heath, 33, a tattoo artist from Manchester says the game has been “amazing” during lockdown: “All the things I miss like being outside, seeing friends, shopping for clothes and things for my home, I can do all of it in my little virtual world.” She has also kitted out a virtual tattoo parlour: “I’ve missed my job as a tattooer a lot, and something that’s kept me entertained has been collecting items to build my own virtual tattoo shop in my basement, that I’m very proud of!”
In a world full of uncertainty and a type of loneliness many of us haven’t experienced before, Animal Crossing brings a slice of calm and a way to socialise without showing our faces. No-one knows what’s going to happen in the next few days, let alone the next few months or years—but on Animal Crossing I know I’ll turn on the game tomorrow and everything will be the same, moving forward in a reassuring positive trajectory. And in these strange times, what more could you want?
