Animal Crossing: New Horizons Missed The Most Important Part Of Its Franchise: Friction

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On this day, March 20, 2025, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is commemorating its 5-year anniversary. Here, we’ll look at whether the unique flexibility of the game might have decreased player engagement by offering fewer challenges to overcome.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (March 20, 2025). We are reconsidering if its innovative freedom could have made the series less exciting because it presents fewer puzzles to solve.

In the initial Animal Crossing game, you play as an outsider: A human moving into a town inhabited by animals and creatures. Even when you turn off the game, time continues to progress. There’s a certain detachment between you and the townsfolk, who were there before you. They can manage without your presence, but they might resent you for not visiting and pulling weeds. These subtle tensions give the games an authentic feel, even in the now-crowded “comfortable” genre.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, launched as recently as 2020, is the series’ most successful title by far, selling over 43 million copies up until November 2023. Its launch at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic catapulted it to cultural and critical acclaim. However, looking back, New Horizons seems underwhelming in comparison to the original games. The island paradise setting is adjustable and welcoming, but it lacks the friction that made Animal Crossing iconic in its early days.

In part, the distinctiveness of New Horizons lies in its unique theme. Unlike previous games, it places the player as a newcomer to an unexplored island, serving initially as the island’s representative and principal decision-maker. As you progress, you shape the town by choosing its layout and selecting more inhabitants. You have the freedom to determine the placement of each building on the island. Additionally, you can scatter furniture items throughout the world (details forthcoming). With these features, you can design the town for optimal efficiency. Over time, you acquire terraforming tools that allow you to customize the island’s layout according to your desires.

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Previous versions of the game allowed for town changes, but this process was time-consuming. In the original Animal Crossing, you could only construct an additional bridge once your town reached its maximum population capacity. If your town’s layout was challenging to maneuver, you had to be patient for it to become more navigable. Unfortunately, you couldn’t simply purchase a bridge and place it wherever you wanted. This waiting period gave Animal Crossing a sense of real-life home building, albeit in a smaller, exaggerated context.

In a just manner, it requires several days for New Horizons’ elements to fully reveal themselves. As you begin with minimal structures, you’ll need to put in a significant amount of time and resources to make your town feel fully developed. However, New Horizons unveils each of its features gradually, through updates and clear objectives. The NookPhone transforms the game’s open-ended tasks into a structured checklist. In contrast to the original Animal Crossing, I initially learned that Nook would upgrade his shop if I spent enough money there by conversing with another villager. The progression is gradual and not immediately obvious; it won’t reveal itself without some interaction.

In the precursor to New Horizons, titled New Leaf, certain elements were foreshadowing for its successor. Upon your arrival, your character assumes the role of mayor, an unexpected position that carries some sense of burden rather than a bestowed authority. This includes tasks like building infrastructure such as bridges and opening new shops, which necessitate resources and effort. The village is not just molded by you, but has a history that predates your arrival, hence there are constraints on how drastically it can be transformed.

In Animal Crossing, the title characters may initially come off as rude or uninterested due to their criticism of your style or work performance. However, it’s essential to earn their affection and respect, which isn’t always straightforward since there are no explicit relationship meters or progress indicators like in traditional video games. Instead, you build connections with the villagers through conversations, completing tasks, and improving your town. This unique approach offers an engaging, albeit less conventional, dynamic between players and the game’s characters.

In the game New Horizons, the emotional journey feels unique since you are the initial community creator. Before your arrival, nothing was there, so there were no established social structures to adapt to. In comparison to previous games, Tom Nook appears less like a local business owner and more like a tech entrepreneur. Moreover, unlike in earlier games where villagers could leave without player intervention, New Horizons allows you to shape the community using Amiibo cards, even preventing a villager from leaving if they express a desire to do so. Essentially, you have significant control over almost every aspect of the game.

The Animal Crossing series, including the initial versions up to New Leaf, primarily focus on daily tasks. These games are designed for brief play sessions, varying in frequency. After completing a few errands and chatting with all your friends, there isn’t much else to do, so you’re encouraged to come back tomorrow. While New Horizons retains this structure, it offers the unique feature of being able to redesign the island, which means there’s usually plenty to do each day, once the game’s mechanics are fully activated. Originally, Animal Crossing was a time-respecting game that appreciated brevity. New Horizons aims to emulate a part-time job experience.

Despite New Horizons’ vibrant achievement, it’s challenging to envision any potential sequel not following a similar path. However, I fervently wish that Nintendo returns the series to its more personal foundations. While I acknowledge and appreciate the improvements in quality-of-life and the exceptional character creator in New Horizons, I yearn for a game that embraces simplicity, understanding that crafting a life involves the challenges of coexisting with others. It seems solitary to be the one setting all the rules.

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2025-03-20 17:39