Gameplay Animal Crossing: New Horizons, or the illusion of freedom

Gameplay Animal Crossing: New Horizons, or the illusion of freedom

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{{article_intro | texte = If there is a game where you are free to do what you want, it is Animal Crossing. This simulation of life does not impose much on you, it is true, letting you wander about your occupations, whether it be fishing or the development of your island. But are we really free in Animal Crossing? Is this feeling just an illusion? We analyze for you the relationship to freedom in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.}

The principle of Animal Crossing is quite simple: you land in a small town or, for the last episode New horizons, on a more or less virgin island. Once installed, a wide choice is available to you to improve the living comfort of the inhabitants. This notably involves the development of services, shops and the arrival of new residents. However, there is one rule that applies to the whole series: you have no obligation. Freedom of action and non-action is at the heart of the game and it is also this flexibility that made the success of the saga. But let’s see together what the limits are and how, with New Horizons, this illusion can be cracked a little more.

In Animal Crossing, there are no levels, no hit points, no end and your nonchalance or laziness brings no penalty or game over. It’s a life simulation where it’s impossible to lose and die. The worst that can happen is falling into apples from the bite of a wasp or the bite of a tarantula. On Switch, it is thanks to the escape program that you land on a desert island to start your best life. A bit like Stardwey Valley, we forget the worries of everyday life, the bustle of the city (for those who live in the city) to get back to basics, reconnect with nature. In this little corner of paradise, you do what you like.

Completely free to move, nothing forces you to follow Tom Nook’s suggestions or the requests of certain inhabitants. If you prefer to focus on decorating your home, if you find pleasure in simply taking care of your flowers and landscaping the island, if you prefer to draw patterns for your clothes or fill the museum, to you. You don’t even have to have relationships with your neighbors. This is how it is also possible to live in Animal Crossing: without pressure and remaining in control of your actions. This is in any case the promise made by the game.

It is by cultivating this feeling of freedom that the game makes you believe that you are choosing each of your actions deliberately. And yet, the latter tries to lead you in a very specific direction.
This is all the more true in the latest installment, with the appearance of the NookPhone and its Miles Nook. With the notifications you receive, you know when you have successfully completed a goal, even when you have not sought to do so. This expressly makes you want to check out the app in question. There have always been hardcore players who wanted to do everything in Animal Crossing. Now that almost everything is indicated through these targets, and there are clear and precise rewards to be found, it’s hard not to feel a little rushed to accomplish them all. It’s great to be rewarded with Nook Miles points, day after day

Fulfilling the objectives and responding to requests from Tom Nook or even Meli and Melo also provide more content. You unlock features, mostly innovative and essential to the interest of this new title. Because yes, not everything is available as soon as you arrive on the island. The game is won if you work hard every day. Money to win, small daily missions, waiting … it reminds a little of free-to-play on mobile, a technique that forces us a little bit every day to come back.

You undertake work on the island, finance constructions such as bridges and ramps, learn DIY plans to make more and more furniture and others for the whole island, you make the shops expand by becoming a customer impeccable, launch building permits for new residents … Finally, you may well be only an island delegate, it is you who work for everyone, nobody is going to lift a finger to help you. So if you want to develop your island and access all the features including the most interesting, you will have to roll up your sleeves and go to the cashier.

Work to then spend everything on clothing, work, home loan. A virtuous or vicious circle whose end you never see. This dear Tom Nook is business savvy and the one who leads you the wand and the eye to push you to do for him all this barely paid work. The framework is perhaps idyllic, the home loans are at rate 0, you are not pressed by dead lines but remains that to take full advantage of the game, you are given the illusion of freedom while you end up you submit to a lot of work and then without any limits, spend and enrich those who already hold the economy. We also congratulate you if you start speculating by investing in turnips.

Let’s admit that it has a hint of capitalism and push the plug a little, modern slavery. Some would say that we choose it but whatever the case, the idea of ​​living freely on our island remains only an illusion, swept away by these processes that we have seen previously. Do you do the tasks for the pleasure of doing them, or in the hope of being rewarded, imagine yourself afterwards, a kind of retirement after so much effort? Maybe, but it would also mark the end of the game.

And you, how do you see Animal Crossing? Rather dream vacation or camouflaged work?

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