It seems like with every new Animal Crossing release, you’ll see talk of Nintendo’s colorful social game everywhere. But, you might not understand the hype or allure of the bright, charming game.

Why is everyone so obsessed with Animal Crossing and New Horizons specifically, you ask?

Because Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the distilled essence of what makes a game fun, addicting, and endlessly re-playable.

A great game is one that hooks a person with instant feedback to encourage the player to keep playing, that supplies the player with a sense of progression which gives meaning to each play session, and that also provides achievements or goals to shoot for.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons does all three in masterful form.

My spouse and I played over 110 hours of the game in the first week of release and we will be playing for hundreds of hours more for years to come.

In this article, I’m going to explain to you why so many people are obsessed with Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch:

1. What is Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
2. Animal Crossing Is Just Plain Fun
3. Instant Feedback
4. Progression
5. Achievements

►Before We Begin: What is Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a social-life simulator about building a village on an un-populated island.

A host of colorful characters join the player, including dozens of animal villagers who also live on the island.

The goal is to use a variety of tools and the ability to craft new items in order to make the island a bustling town.

If you are new to the franchise and want to start playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, check out these two beginner tips-and-tricks guides I created just for you:

1. Top 5 Tools You Should Be Using In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
2. How To Make Infinite Fishing Rods (Animal Crossing: New Horizons)

►Animal Crossing is Just Plain Fun

Before I delve into the three underlying points that make people obsessed with Animal Crossing, I’m going to be as direct as can be: Animal Crossing is just plain fun.

The world is colorful, bright, cheery, and is a great game to play after a long day of work. It is the kind of game that can lift one’s mood.

The game entices people to play by having its in-game clock match the real world.

The fear of missing out is quite real, enticing us to play as often as we can.

So, if it is Tuesday August 24th at 12 pm in real life, then it will be the exact day, date, and time in the game.

This means, there is always something to do as shops have closing times and various insects and fish come out at different parts of the day. The fear of missing out is quite real, enticing us to play as often as we can.

Additionally, villagers are simply a blast to talk and interact with. They truly become friends.

These residents celebrate the player’s birthday, run up to the player to give gifts, dance, do yoga, and interact with each other. This makes the game feel very much alive.

Lastly,  there is such a simple joy to catching fish or finding a new item that you never had even after playing for 50 or 100 hundred hours.

Animal Crossing (New Horizons in particular) is a fun, uplifting escape from the real world that is full of joy, hope, and fun at every instant. If you don’t enjoy Animal Crossing you don’t enjoy fun.

►Instant feedback

Everything done in New Horizons supplies instant feedback. From fishing to shaking trees, feedback is delivered to the player immediately.

Instant feedback is required to entice players to play “for just one more minute”.

Do something, get something is what makes playing any game exciting.

Furthermore, this methodology is woven in New Horizons’ genetic code:

• shaking fruit trees immediately gives the player fruit.
• casting a rod into the ocean will either catch you a fish or scare the fish away.
• hitting rocks or trees will give you instant access to crafting materials used to build better items.
• talking to villagers provides you with instant conversation, a gift exchange, a bit of info about what’s going on in town, or talk of current events.

This instant feedback is why I, my spouse, and millions of others enjoy playing Animal Crossing so much.

I always feel like I’m doing something, and it feels like there is always something to do.

And there never feels like “the right time” to put the controller down and stop playing New Horizons. One simply has to pry oneself away from the game or simply never sleep ever again.

Acquiring new items via instant feedback is a positive feeling which entices me to do one more thing or to play for just a few more minutes . . . until a few minutes become a few hours, that is.

After I shake one tree and gather its fruit, I need to do so to another tree, and another, until I’ve shaken all the trees in my village. There goes a half-hour of playtime!

Of course, I’ll stumble upon a school of fish and start catching them along my way; next, I’ll see a bug I haven’t caught and I’ll try to catch it.

Then, I’ll be distracted by a villager that ran up to me to tell me some news, only to remember I was originally on my way to the museum to donate fossils.

By the time I have finished everything, hours of joy have passed by.

Why is this? Immediate feedback feels great.

We as humans enjoy getting something right now for doing something right now, and New Horizons gifts its players with rewards nearly every second of gameplay.

This constant reward system for doing pretty much anything in the game hits our brains like adrenaline and a wave of positive chemicals that make us feel like we truly are making progress.

►Progression

Progression is another point New Horizons does so well to keep players glued to their controllers for hours on end.

I would argue that progression is one of the key factors in life and in video games that resonate with the masses.

Think about life progression: we progress from babies to teens to adults; we learn how to crawl, walk, speak, and drive; and we get jobs, buy a home, and start a family.

We are hot-wired to do more, to progress. It is in our very nature. New Horizons simply understands our need to advance and gives it to us throughout the length of the game.

Here are a few examples of progression in the game

• Weak tools at the start of the game can be upgraded to stronger tools.
• Access to the entire island is limited at first but access opens up as new island traversal tools are made available.
• The tent the player lives in at the beginning of the game can be upgraded to a house which can then be upgraded to something even bigger.
• The basic store with essential items turns into a large retail store with an abundance of items.
• A tailor passing through town eventually opens her own shop.
• The in-game cell phone that acts as a guidance device gains improved functionality.
• Only two villagers live on the island other than the player at the start, but more villagers move-in after certain points in the game.
• Performing every-day tasks such as fishing and catching bugs will cause a museum to be constructed on the island.
• And much more.

There is always something to do in New Horizons and something to work towards.

As players, this is what keeps us coming back to the game.

We want to work towards something bigger and better, we want to grow and get stronger.

New Horizons just happens to know how to do this arguably better than other games, as it continuously provides the player with

• better tools
• bigger houses
• more villagers
• new species of bugs and insects
• access to more parts of the island
• new shops, seasonal events
• and a host of other things to look forward and work towards.

New Horizons is built on the kind of progression that not only players but humans react favorably to. There is no better feeling than when one achieves.

►Achievements

Just like the need to progress, we have a need to achieve. And New Horizons has obtainable achievements for miles.

Think of achievements as mini-goals that supplement progression.

Here is a real-world example:

• One might want to progress to a higher job title and will achieve pay bonuses, pay increases, more responsibilities, and deeper relationships with colleagues along the way.

These are all achievements (mini-goals to be obtained) whereas the higher job title is the giant progression one is heading towards.

In New Horizons, the big-picture progression might be getting a bigger home or new tool.

Getting a larger house may be the long-term plan, but earning enough money is a mini-goal that must be tackled first.

How are you going to earn enough money? It’s up to you to achieve this task.

For a new tool, hunting and gathering materials for the upgrade is a mini-goal to be achieved.

Where are you going to get the materials and how quickly can it be obtained? Yet another mini-goal to be achieved by you, the player.

Simply put, it feels good achieving goals and this game knows it.

Additionally, New Horizons provides a long list of quests that can be completed separate from the game’s main progression and story elements.

Not only are there large goals to achieve, New Horizons also provides an infinite amount of smaller daily quests to complete, one after another.

These quests (along with whatever mini-goals ones) gives players something to work for every minute of gameplay.

And as they say, life without goals is meaningless.

I can tell you from experience that completing a daily quest feels so satisfying that it makes me want to complete more.

My spouse feels the same way which is why she plays New Horizons for hours upon hours every single day.

Simply put, it feels good achieving goals and this game knows it and supplies the means to do so from top to bottom.

New Horizons provides the player with many goals which in turn feels good, and feeling good makes the player continue playing.

It is an endless cycle that will keep millions of Animal Crossing: New Horizons obsessed fans playing this Nintendo Switch game for years to come.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

►Conclusion: A Feel-Good Obsession

And there you have it!

People are obsessed with Animal Crossing: New Horizons because it is a fun, cheery game that consistently provides players with immediate rewards, a strong progression system, and oodles of goals and achievements to obtain.

Come back here whenever you want a refresher on why so many people love and adore the Animal Crossing series and New Horizons in particular.

By Wally

(Screenshots taken by me. Images sourced from product pages on the Nintendo website. Logos, characters, and images are owned by their respective owners)