2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)
- Final score: 95 points
- Total placements: 5 lists
- Highest placement: #1, Zilla
Casey writes:
Sorry to say I ended up not ranking this game, despite spending hundreds of hours on it–I know I keep saying it, but I consider that a testament to how many amazing games were on this platform. It was a really great way to spend time with people during 2020 and early 2021, I’m pretty content with the exact amount of engagement I had with the game, and it’s been cool to observe the people I know who stuck around for longer, to see the 2.0 update and beyond and all that it added to the game. One thing I keep thinking about is how much detail went into the audio for this game: consideration for how things sound when they’re happening in-world vs the soundtrack music, all the detailed little sound effects and also the super obvious ones, the ways that weather and time of day affect it all… it’s just incredible. That care and attention to detail spreads to almost every corner of the game, something that you can really sit back and appreciate in a game that is as slow as this.
I think it’s also pretty interesting to consider how the way Nintendo rolled out changes over time had been shaped by their evolving strategy with the modern era of “live service games”; the Splatoon series in many ways gave them an education that they could apply to this game in terms of how to pace content updates and engage with the fans. There’s still more improvements to make in that area, but this generation was a lot of progress for a company I think most people would admit was behind the times leading up to it. I’m not sure how far off we are from another proper game in the series but I’d honestly consider paying for a remaster on Switch 2 that greatly reduces load times and streamlines menus for things like connecting to online play, because there’s still a ton in this game that I haven’t seen and it’d be fun to have a motivation to go back or start a new island.
Schnei writes:
All right, there’s one more game I strongly associate with disrupting my life patterns. For how hard it is to describe, it’s surprisingly easy to recall the pervasive, disruptive, feral anxiety of spring 2020. ACNH was an invaluable tether to humanity when we all needed it most. Calling out crafters, fastidiously tracking turnip prices, visiting friends’ islands for shooting stars, and just having a creative outlet that would let us do something lovely and share it with each other. Fun and accessible for casual play and yet providing enough depth to sustain hours of attention made it truly a game with something for everyone. And then seeing that play out online at a societal scale, and feeling like I was part of an encapsulated moment in time, self-aware, as it happened. How is there not a documentary about this game?
Outside of that context, I’d struggle to place it in the top ten, but I meant what I said about rating gaming experiences, and this was certainly one-of-a-kind.