An Open Letter to the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Team

Dear Nintendo

It has been a funny old time out here in the real world. Concern and paranoia dominate conversation; people eye each other with uneasy suspicion; and simple human contact feels like a true risk in ways it never did before. And yet, even amidst this rotten pandemic, your game is attempting to cut through the stench of fear that lingers all around. It doesn’t always succeed, but it always tries; for that, I thank you.

Stuck at home, losing track of the days and the last time I put on proper trousers. It’s an unclean feeling, one that isn’t helped by soap, water and any amount of scrubbing. In Animal Crossing, however, I’m proud to don a fresh, well-coordinated outfit every morning. I may be a mismatched mess when it comes to real life outfits, but Sable and Mable, with their tailor shop, make sure that it needn’t be the case on my island sanctuary. Thanks to your work, Nintendo, a house full of fancy garments and accessories awaits me in-game, along with a colourful assortment of characters who support even my wildest fashion statements.

In much the same way that large chunks of my wardrobe have become redundant, conversation topics have also dried up and narrowed on the outside world. Too many subjects now seem far too insignificant to even entertain. Every discussion is, at least partially, tainted by the presence of this damned virus. Simple conversations about—oh I don’t know—smoothie flavours, the latest blockbuster movie or plans for the weekend have vanished from everyday life. Not so among my island cohorts, I’m pleased to report. Idle musings about the minor pleasures of our days are free to spring from friend to friend, free of judgement or concerns about the issues we ‘ought’ to be discussing. Sometimes, substanceless chit-chat is the perfect pick-me-up, and you, Nintendo, have preserved it for me on this wondrous deserted island paradise.

With most everything shut, events on hold—if not cancelled outright—and life seemingly in limbo, the weeks have started to blend into one another. It’s hard to believe that the calendar marches on, despite the various occasions that would normally punctuate it being scattered to the wind. Easter… that came and went in even more of a half-remembered haze of chocolate and vague religious notions than usual, didn’t it? As much as your ‘Bunny Day’ event may have hung about a little too long for most players’ liking, I appreciated your wholehearted commitment to a holiday that everyone else was prepared to treat with as much reverence as a passing breeze. It wasn’t perfect, but even the virtual acknowledgement of a special occasion in the middle of this perceived purgatory was a treat.

As someone who would frequently go on runs and walks around town as a head-clearing, almost meditative exercise, lockdown measures have left me feeling both mentally and physically cooped up. It’s crucial that we all stay inside, obviously, but spontaneous walks are an ideal remedy for the malaise that—in many of us—can strike at any moment. The lack of hard and fast objectives and ability to glide between any number of low-pressure island activities with absolute freedom, while hardly a complete replacement, goes some way towards mitigating the sense of loss that comes from a reduction in real life freedoms. I’m finding that this ‘cabin fever’ can present a genuine threat to mental health; you should be proud that your work on Animal Crossing can go even a tiny way in preventing that.

I could ramble on (lord knows I’ve got the time to spare), but you’re probably busy—too busy to listen to one player gush about some pretend idyllic island he happens to quite like. I will, however, leave you with one more message:

“Bringing Smiles to People’s Faces”. That’s your primary goal, Nintendo—it’s plastered in bold on your website. With that in mind, and with the severe lack of smiles to be had elsewhere nowadays, I’d say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is truly one of your most successful games ever. Again, thank you. Your work has produced something that I, and many others, very much need right now: an escape.

Yours faithfully

Jamie