The 5-Year Anniversary of the Only Game That's Ever Mattered

How Animal Crossing: New Horizons has marked the changes in my life.

I didn’t post last week—no ideas were flowing.

But I did just read this lovely post from The Video Game Storyteller about the serendipitous launch of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (often abbreviated ACNH) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what that did to the cozy gaming community’s collective psyche. That got some thoughts flowing.

Animal crossing broke me and rebuilt me. It broke Nintendo and rebuilt Nintendo. It tipped the gender imbalance on Reddit because it brought so many women into the gaming community (ok, I don’t know if it did that, but I would bet money that it moved the needle a little). ACNH was the second-most sold game on the Nintendo Switch with nearly 50 million copies sold. The rest of the Animal Crossing series games are also record-holders on their respective consoles—Wild World on the DS, City Folk on Wii, and New Leaf on the 3DS.

But none of those records really matter. When was the last time you read a book that wasn’t a New York Times bestseller? It seems like everything holds a record for something these days.

What is “Cozy” Gaming?

The Animal Crossing series is unique in that none of the games have a competitive or violent element. The token videogames like Call of Duty, CSGO, League of Legends, and even Pokemon all have a clear enemy or adversary—you kill or beat something to win. Even Pong and Tetris are competitive by nature.

(Sorry to burst any parents’ bubbles—but if your kid plays CSGO, the goal of the game is literally to plant an undetected bomb as an act of terrorism. But, the worst part? It’s really fun. And no, it doesn’t inspire violent tendencies in your kids—it actually makes them smarter and calmer in the short term.)

But Animal Crossing, The Sims, Stardew Valley, Coral Island, and Hello Kitty Island Adventure (which has consumed my entire being over the last 6 weeks) don’t have that. No violence, no winning, no battles, no bombs, no nothing.

So what the f*ck kind of games are they? Enter a “new” genre: cozy gaming. Cozy games are often focused on collection, decoration, and friendship; they commonly have fishing mechanics, friendly NPCs or even romance, farming, foraging, and other relaxing activities.

I hate the term cozy gaming, though. I’m not a cozy gamer. I speed run these games, hard grinding for materials, friendship bonuses, whatever I can get my hands on. I don’t listen to instrumental music in the background, I play my divorced dad rock playlist on repeat until my eyes get tired from staring at cotton ball clouds and heart-shaped lakes. I have 1,500+ hours across the Animal Crossing franchise, 600+ hours on Stardew Valley, and I’ve logged 20 hours on Hello Kitty Island Adventure in the last week (I have maxed out friendship with every main character except Hello Kitty herself—I don’t think the devs were making the game for someone like me. I think it was meant to be played a little slower). Cozy games aren’t necessarily played by cozy people.

Cozy gaming used to be referred to as the life simulation genre. The best example is The Sims: you design a character (sometimes in your likeness), build them a house, and influence their daily routine. A Sim is like a mini version of you.

But life simulation doesn’t capture the wholeness of cozy gaming: the collection, decoration, slow-but-steady progress, the heartfelt exchanges. I wish I had a better word for it—one that was non-derogatory (cozy makes it sound like I’m not trying, and some people use the term to refer to games that “girls” play) but still not an oversimplification. Maybe I’ll come up with something when I do a review of Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

Animal Crossing Leads the Genre

Animal Crossing first launched in 2001 on the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube platforms. The most popular games of 2001 were Halo: Combat Evolved, Grand Theft Auto III, and Madden NFL 2002 (honorable mention, the Tony Hawk skateboarding series). Ok, games where you shoot people, bomb stuff, rob people, crash cars, and beat the living sh*t out of each other. Makes sense.

Oh, and Animal Crossing. The only cozy game/life simulation/social simulation/ whatever-you-want-to-call-it game that released that year, selling over 2 million copies.

I can’t give you a reference for how weird this trend is because there were no other cozy games available at the time. You could argue The Sims series, but I am hesitant to compare the AC series to The Sims because it lacks a certain imaginative component. You make your character look like you, your character does things you might do. Your AC character is at best a caricature, but your neighbors are talking cows, sheep, mice, chickens, and greedy tanuki. You can fit whale sharks and refrigerators in your pocket. You can grow money trees. A ferret mails you a piece of paper every day telling you if your house is pretty enough for a silly little trophy. None of it makes any sense.

But here we are, over 80 million copies sold across the franchise, almost 25 years later. I could sit here and tell you it’s because AC brought non-gamers into the gaming community, because people just got so sick of the fast-paced 21st century that they wanted something to relax to, or that they wanted to Stick It To the Man (the man being Tom Nook). And it probably is because of those things, but really it is just a pleasure to play. There’s never been anything like it.

I Lost a Friend?

I have done essentially everything there is to do in ACNH at this point. Every inch of my island is beautifully decorated. I’ve caught every fish, dug up every fossil, purchased every house upgrade, paid off all of my loans, bred every flower type, received the highest Happy Home Academy rating, made millions in the stalk market. Of course, there are a few lingering tasks to complete—gathering the last few insects, art pieces, and Punchy’s photo. Those will all come in time.

But this week, which marks the five-year anniversary of the release of ACNH on Nintendo Switch, one of my villagers asked to move away.

That isn’t inherently a bad thing—I’ve had villagers that I really did not prefer, and I jumped at the first chance to kick them off my island. Over the years I’ve slowly gotten my favorite villagers to stay, including Punchy, Olivia, and Shino.

When you start your ACNH island, you have three “starter” villagers that are randomly selected to live in your town. Mine were Julian, a sassy blue unicorn; Rodeo, a bull; and I quite honestly can’t remember the third. Must not have been very important, and they’re certainly long gone from my island. Rodeo asked to move away some years ago when I started collecting all of the deer villagers—it was easy to send him off.

Julian, however, stayed on my island until this week. I actually hated having him—his house is decorated with a set of astrologically-themed furniture that is extremely unpractical and gives a holier-than-thou (literally) vibe, which is Julian’s whole personality. His catchphrase is “glitter.” He looks like he wears false eyelashes, and he’s the only horse villager with a horn; the only unicorn in the whole game. He might even sound like a cryptid—most players do not know about him or have only heard tall tales.

Julian, an eccentric ACNH horse villager.

Unintentionally, I had grown quite fond of seeing Julian around my island. Comparatively, he’s much, much taller than the other villagers, and quite brightly colored. Easy to pick out in the midst of trinkets and gizmos scattered around my island. You can’t miss him.

At some point along the way, he had started calling me “canapé,” a French word for a small bite of bread or a cracker with savory toppings. I didn’t like the nickname he had given me, but I got used to reading it in his text bubbles.

I remember hoping, praying that Julian would leave my island soon, as I only had a few deer villagers left to populate my town. And then I saw that dreaded thought bubble.

Peppy, thinking about moving away.

When a villager wants to leave, they walk around your island with this iconic thought bubble above their head. They slowly tread along until they notice the player, and sometimes they’ll even jog towards you to start the conversation. If they mention they’re thinking of moving away, the player has the chance to say yes, it’s time for you to go, or no, please stay.

I didn’t like Julian. I wanted him to move. But now that my last original villager is gone, I’ve really noticed how much time has passed since the release of this game. It’s been a full five years—I graduated high school and college, started grad school, moved states, and everything in between. And Julian saw most of it.

The coherent ideas stop flowing here. I love Animal Crossing. I think about it most days, I buy all of the AC merch, I’m dreaming of the next game release for the Switch 2. But beyond the 10 minutes per day that I log in to check Redd’s art gallery, I’ve done my time on ACNH. There isn’t much left for me to do. I’m all grown up, but I’ll never outgrow the series.

That’s what “cozy” gaming did to the community. People will continue to mock the genre, but they can’t deny it’s carved out a space of its own.

P.S. I’m hoping to adopt a cat in the fall—if it happens, I’m 99% sure I will name it Punchy. Regardless of the cat’s resemblance to the AC villager.