Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Crafting in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

There’s been a lot of hype this week with the pre-order going live for Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch, which releases March 20, 2020. My daughter has been waiting for this game for months. Surprisingly, she is the only person in our household who isn’t a gamer, aside from the random mobile game. I think she has dabbled in Board Kings and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp; hence, her excitement for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

She’s too young to have played the original Animal Crossing, but she is so excited about the new version that she requested a Nintendo Switch for her birthday just to play this single game. Not convinced that this was a good purchase, considering she is not a gamer, I asked if she could just use her brother’s Switch. Of course, that was not an option, because it would require waiting for him to relinquish the console, and she wants to play with her friends. This purchase, however, fell to grandma, as all somewhat outrageous requests typically do.

But, I had to know, what’s so special about this game that would convince my non-gamer child that she has to absolutely have a Nintendo Switch just to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Her response, “Mom! It has all this cool new never before done stuff!” I responded, “Like what?” Her answer, “Terraforming, building bridges, day and night cycles. It actually rains! And you can craft things and even go fishing!” None of this sounds new to me. I’ve been doing these things in MMOs for over a decade. But, hey, kudos to the marketing teams at Nintendo. I hope she can pay off that debt to Tom Nook.