Most can agree the world is not in the best place right now. A pandemic has spread across the globe, thrown everything into disarray, and caused all sorts of delays and cancellations across multiple industries in the process. In this trying time, when people are being encouraged to stay as far apart from each other as possible, it helps to focus on the positive things that bring us together, like all of the fan art mashing the Animal Crossing and Doom franchises together.
By now, the gaming community is well aware that Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal are both launching this Friday, a fact that has inspired all sorts of fan art and memes celebrating the tonal whiplash that is a peaceful social sim being in the same space as a gory first-person shooter. There’s been enough of it, in fact, that some of Animal Crossing’s top developers have shared their thoughts on it.
Speaking with IGN on the topic, New Horizons’ director Aya Kyogoku and producer Hisashi Nogami took the opportunity to praise how the two fandoms have been mingling. "I definitely do notice and have noticed that there’s a lot of Doom and Animal Crossing collaboration art and illustrations that are being posted,” Kyogoku said, “and as I look through them I’m in awe of how much creativity our fans have.”
It might come as a surprise, as some fans might not expect the makers of an all-ages game being heavily associated with one where players can rip open demons’ skulls with their bare hands, but as Nogami pointed out, it’s kind of incredible that Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal sharing a release date was enough to spur this much wholesome interaction among fans.
"So Animal Crossing and Doom — obviously the game genres are completely different. We definitely do have something in common, and that is that they’re both video games, and come from that same subculture so to speak,” he said. “It’s so great to see that these two different [fandoms] are coming together and hyping up the gaming [community] and gaming culture itself. It really is a great thing to see.”
It’s the kind of fun nonsense that everyone could use nowadays. Even if one isn’t a fan of either franchise for whatever reason, it’s hard to deny that there’s something funny about an adorable canine secretary and a bulked-up space marine being best friends and occasionally slaying demons together. At the very least, it goes to show that Animal Crossing can be a part of some pretty unusual crossovers.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons comes out on March 20 for the Switch. Doom Eternal launches on that day for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch version to follow at a later date.
Source: IGN