The year of Animal Crossing continues, as New Horizons has just won Game of the Year at Tokyo Game Show 2020. The prestigious award belongs to the life sim that seemingly took the video game world by storm when it launched in March.

To go along with the remarkable sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo and the team behind the game now have an award to celebrate the success. A part of the charm of the game is that New Horizons can be played in so many different ways, and has attracted an audience of all kinds. New Horizons continues to perform well to this day in terms of sales, but the boom during the launch period is what helped catapult the series that began on the Nintendo 64 to new heights.

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It's fairly rare for a video game to catch fire and become a total cultural phenomenon. Fortnite did this thanks to streaming and a massive audience of players young and old. Pokemon GO got gamers and non-gamers alike off their couches and in the wild, as it was normal to see someone flicking their finger to catch a Squirtle from across the street. Animal Crossing: New Horizons' rise to popularity can perhaps partially be attributed to perfect timing, and the TGS press release admitted that this was a part of the consideration for the reward, as New Horizons became Japan's highest-selling game ever.

animal crossing new horizons happy

Because we were forced to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a slow-life experience in this game in which you can do everything freely became a comfort to people all over the world.

The entire world halted, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Spring usually brings about an excitement, a joy that comes along with flowers opening up and warm weather inching nearer. Instead, the time brought about a level of confusion, stress, and even fear.

Especially as humanity was just starting to grasp the dangers of the virus, the idea of going outside for a simple milk run was not only advised against by local governments, it was genuinely scary. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game that is the opposite of all of that. The game is cute, fun, freeing, adorable, silly, light-hearted. It is also a title about going outside and exploring and meeting new friends, all things that were taboo in the real and almost dystopian world. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an amazing game in it of itself, there's little denying that. But on top of being a polished experience, it was the perfect game for an imperfect time, and continues to be a joy for many to this day.

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Source: VG247