Animal Crossing: New Horizons was one of my go-to games during COVID. I’d stay up late, playing for hours on end doing menial tasks to work on my island. Breaking rocks, watering flowers and checking the shops had become a daily routine of mine. The soft, calm background music alongside the predictable flow of the game offered a sense of normalcy during an unpredictable time.
Like a lot of people, I eventually stopped playing once life slowly started to become normal again. I didn’t think much of it until six years later, when I caught wind that there was a new update coming to the game. I decided to restart and create a new save, and lo and behold, the rest was history.
If you are interested in accumulating more debt than your student loans, this is the right game for you. Within the first twenty minutes of gameplay, you’re handed a tent startup, a phone and are given a bill for all the amenities a con artist of a raccoon, also known as Tom Nook, has arranged for you that you did not sign up for. He also wastes no time placing responsibilities on you as the representative of this new island and convincing you to take out a house loan. The loan system is relatively straightforward; it allows the player to upgrade their home without accruing interest or facing any deadlines. However, subsequent upgrades get progressively more expensive, with each expansion requiring a larger payment of Bells, the in-game currency earned through selling fruit, fish and completing small tasks around the island.
It didn’t take long before I got back into the rhythm of the game. Most of the mechanics were the exact same, yet it still felt fresh because there were more things to do. I was still gathering resources, shaking trees for fruit and most importantly, decorating the island to become something special and unique. This time around, I was being more intentional on the island’s design. When I was playing back then, I was much more impatient and had wanted to unlock everything as fast as possible, worrying about decorating later. Now, I found myself using a more methodical and slow approach to play the game, spending more time taking it in, enjoying the repetition and slow progression.
Part of the game’s charm is that the player gets to play at their own pace and in their own way. There aren’t any penalties for taking a break, nor is there an objective you are required to accomplish at a certain time. Of course, some progress is technically locked by a paywall enforced by this evil raccoon, but funnily enough, I find it more relaxing to be in millions of fake debt than to deal with my actual schoolwork. Unlike debt in the real world, Tom Nook is kind enough to offer interest-free loans, so in actuality it’s not so bad (although maybe I’m just coping REALLY hard).
As much as I complain about the mountains of mortgage I need to pay back, there’s something oddly comforting about the simplicity of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. What once filled long, empty days has now become something I turn to when I’m looking for a break from the chaos of life.
Mandy Guan
Layout Editor
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