There’s an unfortunate truth to gaming: most games follow a predictable life span. We read about them for months anxiously waiting the day they finally arrive in stores. We wait in lines, spam webpages, and scour EBay for possible listings. Once we have it in our hands, we play passionately and spend borderline ridiculous amounts of time searching the game world for all there is to see and do. If we haven’t read about it already, we hope there is a post-game that will allow us to continue our quest and maintain our relationships with the characters we’ve grown to love.
But it ends all-too-soon.
We gobble up the content within the matter of a few days and we’re left with a one dimensional grind to squeeze out the last playable bits of information. Needless to say, we find a new game to get excited about and we repeat the process.
Animal Crossing is different. The design allows us to live and grow in a virtual world where there’s always something new. It intelligently limits us in what we’re capable of achieving allowing the game’s content to span from month to month. What to go to the store? Too bad! It’s closed. It’s an interesting idea that differentiates Animal Crossing from the rest. Rather than a mad dash to the finish line, it’s a marathon of easy going, feel-good content that refreshes itself day to day.
Yes, there are times we log on late at night and realize there’s not much we want to do. However, this doesn’t stop us from crossing the village speaking to those who might be out late. We genuinely care about maintaining relationships with NPCs who have lived there for months or meeting those who just moved in. It’s a virtual experience that has no true goal. The formula is simple- Animal Crossing is just a world that we live in- and we love that about it.
Many of us harken back to the older Animal Crossing games such as Wild World and fondly remember the relationships and wealth we acquired throughout. Of course, this is assuming your account isn’t still just as active as the day you first started. But with the editions created in Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3ds many players have abandoned their old world for something that has a little more to offer.
As players log on every day to catch bugs, find fossils, go fishing, or pay off the enormous amount of debt they undoubtedly have, one thing definitely remains true—Animal Crossing follows a formula quite unusual for gaming, and that in and of itself, is very refreshing.