It's been over a year... is the game still fun?
March 2020. It was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, and a time where lots of people were realizing that they were going to be spending a lot of time at home (it'll only be eight weeks they said! what could go wrong?). In all honesty, Animal Crossing New Horizons (ACNH) could not have come out at a better time. There is even a small part of me that wonders if someone at Nintendo can see into the future, saw that there was going to be a global pandemic, and decided to release the game right as people were heading home to shelter in place. However, it has been over a year since the game was released, and so I thought that this would be an interesting time to write a review on it. Is ACNH just as enjoyable as it was in the beginning?
Well, long story short, it depends. The animal crossing series is in its core a grind heavy game. You play everyday, you complete your chores, and you work to complete whatever are your ultimate goals (getting a five star island, completing the museum, getting framed photos of your favorite villagers, having one of every item available in the game, etc.). When the pandemic first started and people were at their most disciplined state of staying at home, ACNH was the ultimate form of escape. Think about it, every day you get to jump into this highly idealized world where basically nothing can go wrong, and you get to do your daily routine (which had just been completely stolen away for many of us). It was a video game of idealized normality (well, as normal as you can get when you live on an island of talking animals), and because of this people grinded HARD. I'm talking 600+ hours within the first couple months.
600+ hours sounds like a lot because it is, and here is where I get into why the game is fun still fun for some players over a year later and why so many people have put down their switch and never picked it back up. It's really quite simple actually. People got burned out. ACNH is a game developed to be played over a long period of time, and I don't think that the ACNH developers expected people to fly through it like they did. Once the year ended and most of the holidays were over and people had completed their goals...there just wasn't much left to keep them picking up the game. After spending 600, 800, even 1,000+ hours in the game just doing your basic daily tasks isn't so fun anymore. The game was no longer enough of an escape from the real world. Nintendo stated that they are planning on providing updates for the game for three years post release date, but so far the updates just have not been large enough and game changing enough to bring people back into regularly playing the game. The majority of the players who set the game down and haven't come back are the players who played really hard and really fast, got burned out, and built up a tolerance to the point where the little joys in the game aren't as appealing anymore.
Above I mentioned that it depended, so who are the players that are still actively enjoying the game over a year later? I believe that there are these two answers: those who love the game and still see it as an escape despite all the hours put in, and people who didn't play the game to an overwhelming extent when it was first released. For the first group of players, I've actually seen many of them actually completely wipe their original islands and start all over in order to have those big goals to work for again which is actually pretty smart. And for the other group, the game is simply just still fun and relaxing. The daily chores and seeing who is visiting your island that day, all of that is still exciting. The game hasn't become boring yet like it has to some. I actually feel really luck that I stopped playing the game religiously around middle of summer and then only play on and off every couple of months until around March of this year because it means so much of the game is still new and fresh to me. I have lots of holidays and seasonal items to look forward to, and while at first I was a little sad that everyone else had the items and I didn't, I realize now that taking those breaks and not grinding extraordinary hard has increased the longevity of the game being an escape for me. The game is still fun because it hasn't become just another chore that I need to take care of. It's an island I get to escape to and have fun with my villager friends. Would more updates (especially bigger ones) be nice? Yes. But right now I'm actually really content with the game how it is, and not feeling disappointed like a lot of ACNH enthusiasts are currently.
I think in the end it's important to remember that everybody plays video games differently. There is no wrong or right way to play ACNH. Want to grind everything out in the first three months? Awesome! Want to play it really slowly and just enjoy the ride? Also awesome! Whether you played it for six months then never picked it up again, or are still playing it every day over a year later, if you got enjoyment from the game and did everything you wanted to do in it, then you played the game in the best way possible. You played it for you. And in the end that's much more important than if the game is still fun over a year post release date.
My review in a gif:
