Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a social simulation game developed by Nintendo EPD, released in March 2020. Players build and shape life on a deserted island at their own pace — fishing, catching bugs, decorating, and visiting neighbours — arriving at the precise moment the world needed a gentle, unhurried escape.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a social simulation game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch, released in March 2020. The fifth mainline entry in the Animal Crossing series, it places the player on a deserted island and gives them the tools to build a community from scratch over months and years of real time.
Players arrive on a bare island and gradually shape it — catching fish and insects, collecting resources, crafting furniture, inviting anthropomorphic animal villagers, and terraforming the landscape. The game runs on a real-time clock aligned to the player's local time, with seasonal events, daily rhythms, and a year of rotating content. There is no failure state or win condition; progress is entirely self-directed.
New Horizons launched during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and became a phenomenon beyond gaming — a shared social space where people met friends, held events, and found solace when the outside world was inaccessible. Its 43 million copies sold made it the best-selling Animal Crossing game by a wide margin.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons won the Golden Joystick Award for Game of the Year in 2020. Rolling Stone ranked it #50 on their 2025 list of the 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time, noting its role as a cultural touchstone of the pandemic era.