Animal Crossing [AC] is a game that has been booming since it’s release date on March 20th 2020, which had been the start of this not so lovely quarantine. 

AC has gained 22.4 million new players over the whole year and will most likely gain many more. 

For the most part, people who were familiar with the game had planned on getting AC on release day. But for the other half, like myself, people weren’t expecting the game to become something so serious in their daily lives. But hey, in this type of year anything could be normalized. 

At the beginning of the lock down tons of thousands of people were playing AC one of those many people including myself. But now, I’m not able to enjoy the game to the fullest how I used to every day because I had to start doing remote learning which I had to change my focus to school. 

Nintendo’s options for using ‘Nintendo Online’ and the ‘Local Play’  for AC did allow people to still hang out with their friends through their screens. And who else would resist being able to hang out on your friends own island? 

I was happy to be able to see some of my online friends islands, talk with them and play the game with them too! Plus you can help them out in hopes that they’ll pay you in bells so you can pay off your overwhelming loan to Tom Nook. 

Like I had said before, people weren’t expecting it to become a daily hobby. Even I was surprised myself because it gave me something to do instead of being stuck inside my house doing nothing all day. 

Because of school now, I really don’t have enough time to keep up with the game as much as I used to, and others I played with, but luckily I could play it from time to time over the weekend or after I had finished my homework.  

From most people who have played the game you would hear that they had a great experience with the game. Some rare ones out there would say that they really don’t like the game at all. For me, I wouldn’t be my first choice because I do have a list of favorite for another time, but I love the game! 

Now that I have such little free time now, it’s hard to see my island just sitting there for days, even weeks at a time now. 

Overall, I would say that AC can be played any type of way, you can play simple and just play by the rules by being a gardener, or making an island a five star resort or even just playing it as something to keep your mind going and open. 

This game gave tons of people something to do whether they didn’t have a job, no school to attend, no places to visit, or just no idea what to do in general over the time. 

It would be fair to say that Animal Crossing is really a blast to play and helped me get away from the crazy world that we all live in now.