Animal Crossing New Horizons Review

In anticipation of the new Animal Crossing update coming out on November 5, 2021, I reset my island to start with a clean slate. Erasing the 130 hours of effort put into my original island was daunting, but I was hoping to recapture the wonder and drive I felt the first time I played.

Staring from the tutorial was a bit annoying as I knew the basics as second nature. Once I was able to get my tent and the in-game time was synchronized with the real world, I was excited to discover new villagers, creatures, and crafting recipes.

Animal Crossing is slow and steady by nature, and personally, I think it’s best to play a little every day instead of time-traveling by messing with the switch’s clock. Each day I chat with my neighbors, a reindeer named Erik and a cat named Rudy. I also catch fish and bugs and donate new species to the museum.

The biggest complaint that players have with this game is that it gets stale and players feel burnout after putting tons of hours into their island. I also felt that playing almost obsessively in the spring of 2020, and then not touching it until now.

Nintendo has been trying to revive interest by putting out small content updates monthly, but no update has been successful at reenergizing the community until version 2.0 was announced. Series favorites were announced to return, new features were developed, and the consensus was that this update was filling the gaps that should not have been present at launch.

Although I’m not as obsessed as I was with the game as I was in March 2020 when quarantine was just starting and I had nothing to do, I felt a bit of that spark of fun that I had back then. Starting from the beginning made me excited to develop my island and be creative with the styling of it. I am excited to see what the new update offers and hope I can make my new island even better than the old.