Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The latest Animal Crossing is also the best, full of life, charm, and near-endless ways to make your very own island paradise.

It's the best Animal Crossing yet, with the best visuals, unparalleled customization, wonderful villagers, and so much content that it isn't even funny. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is Nintendo at its best.

With its numerous quality-of-life improvements and additions, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a big step forward for the series and found its perfect destination on the Switch. Especially given the current circumstances that we’re all facing right now in the world, it may have been unintentional that such a peaceful, idyllic game would arrive in the midst of so much fear, uncertainty, and stress. But thankfully, it’s nice to have a small, peaceful little place to escape to right now, and I can’t wait to keep coming back to it when I need it most.

The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, and Super Mario each found new life on the Nintendo Switch, and following those games in kind is Animal Crossing: New Horizons: An expanded, polished, next-generation reboot of a classic Nintendo game. Perhaps most importantly, like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is full of surprises. I cannot wait to see what's to come: Seeing cool custom islands from the community, special events, season changes. It took too long to get to the most exciting part of my island renovation (until I cheated), but now that all of New Horizons...

There has never been a better time for a new Animal Crossing game to arrive. It cannot fix what’s going on in the world right now, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives us the joyful, meditative escape that so many of us desperately need right now. Whether you’re young or old, you’ll find something to like. What isn’t to love about customising your dream island and being able to sit on a bench by the beach, listening to the waves, just because you can? Nothing I can think of, that’s for sure.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives you more creative freedom and more to do on any given day while preserving what makes the series special.

Animal Crossing has always been a series where every little thing leads to something productive. Doing nothing and staring off into the sky is relaxing, decorating houses is fun and catching critters feels rewarding. There's never been a real “point” to Animal Crossing but that's what makes it enjoyable, as every person can enjoy and do what they like at their own pace. New Horizons nails this feeling more than ever, with so many options and lots of things to collect and enjoy. While it's easy to play in short bursts, it's often hard to stop playing when ideas keep coming and experimentation i...

It's an exceptional game, with few faults to speak of, and players who have even the slightest inkling of interest should check it out as soon as possible.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons will become part of your daily routine. Besides work, school, lunches and meetings with friends, you will catch butterflies and fish every day. And you're gonna enjoy it, because it's one of the best games of the year.

After seven years of waiting, the newest entry in the series takes natural steps forward in ways I didn’t know were needed and with very few shortcomings. At the time, New Leaf felt like the definitive Animal Crossing experience, yet New Horizons somehow managed to prove that wrong.

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the escapism we need right now.”

Animal Crossing: New Horizons transports the player to another world, one where the hardships of life seem inconsequential.