Animal Crossing

• 1. Introduction

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  Animal Crossing: New Horizons had sold 49.91 million copies worldwide as of the 31st of March 2026. That is remarkable for a game that never tells you what to do. You arrive as a human in a village of talking animals, and you stay there indefinitely. Nintendo developed and published the series, which Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami created as a social simulation. There is no villain, no final level and no score to chase. So what keeps millions of people returning to a place with no goals? Why does the game care what time it is in your living room? And how did one quiet village end up in political protest, in fighting games and in anime theaters?

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• 2. Real Time

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  Every Animal Crossing game reads the internal clock and calendar of the console it runs on. If it is winter and evening in your home, it is winter and evening in the village. Holidays arrive on their real-world dates. A tree you plant needs real days to grow, and no button speeds it up.

  The series is also known for its hourly music and its humorous dialogue. The soundtrack shifts as the day passes, so the village sounds different at breakfast than it does at night.

  Some of that music comes from a canine busker who turns up only on certain nights.

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• 3. A Village of Your Own

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  Terrain, building locations and the first residents are randomly generated when a new game begins. New Leaf and New Horizons break that pattern. In New Leaf the player picks from four given towns, and in New Horizons from four given islands. Either way, the player names the village and writes its anthem. Some residents' catchphrases are the player's choice too.

  Customization reaches the player's own body and home. Clothes and accessories can be bought or designed from scratch. Wild World introduced the choice of hairstyle. Furniture can be placed anywhere inside the house, and wallpaper and floors can be changed. The house can later be expanded.

  Bells, the in-game currency, pay for all of it. Nearly every object can be sold for Bells, from fruit picked off trees to seashells and discarded items. Players then spend them on furniture, clothing, home expansions and games. Specialized tools support fishing and insect collecting. Fossils and paintings can be donated to the village museum instead of sold.

  Social life runs alongside the collecting. Players talk with residents, trade letters, barter and play hide-and-seek. Residents may move in or out depending on how the player behaves.

  One village can house up to four human players, or eight in New Horizons. Only one can explore at a time. Housemates leave each other written messages at the post office or on the bulletin board.

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• 4. Neighbors

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  Tom Nook is a tanuki, or a raccoon in America, who runs a shop and also works as a real estate broker. He lends the player money for a house and its upgrades. Repayment carries no interest.

  Mr. Resetti is a mole who bursts up from underground whenever a player switches the game off without saving. He lectures them for dodging one of the game's own systems. New Horizons added an autosave, so the game says he was laid off. He has since found work as the Rescue Service operator.

  K.K. Slider is a traveling musician, a dog, based on series composer Kazumi Totaka. After playing in the player's town on certain nights, he hands over a free copy of the song, saying his music "wants to be free". Some fans read that as support for music piracy. Nintendo denied any intended social commentary.

  Isabelle serves as town community manager and as secretary to Tom Nook in New Horizons. She first appeared in New Leaf as an assistant to the player. She lets players change the town flag and tune and reset things like nicknames and villager outfits.

  The shops have their own staff. Timmy and Tommy, Tom Nook's apprentices and also tanukis, run Nook's Cranny. Mabel and Sable are hedgehogs who manage the clothing store called the Able Sisters. Orville and Wilbur, two dodos, operate Dodo Airlines, the only airport on the deserted island of New Horizons.

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• 5. Across the Consoles

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  The 14th of April 2001 saw the first Animal Crossing arrive in Japan, on the Nintendo 64. An enhanced GameCube version followed the same year. North America received it on the 16th of September 2002. An extended edition, Dōbutsu no Mori e+, reached Japan in June 2003. The Nintendo 64 original also reached China in 2006 on the iQue Player.

  Wild World reached Japan on the 23rd of November 2005 for the Nintendo DS. It was the series' first game to use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. When the service was discontinued, the Wii U Virtual Console re-release of October 2016 lost its Wi-Fi multiplayer.

  City Folk, called Let's Go to the City in Europe and Australia, came to North America on the 16th of November 2008. It was the first Wii game to use Wii Speak, an accessory that lets players talk to each other during online play.

  New Leaf was announced at E3 2010 and released in Japan on the 8th of November 2012. North America waited until the 9th of June 2013. For the first time, the player is appointed Mayor. A November 2016 update called Welcome amiibo added new locations, items and activities.

  New Horizons was revealed in a Nintendo Direct in September 2018. It launched worldwide on the 20th of March 2020, after an earlier plan to release it in 2019. It later received an edition for Nintendo Switch 2, announced in October 2025 for the 15th of January 2026.

  The spin-offs wandered further. Happy Home Designer, released for the Nintendo 3DS in North America on the 25th of September 2015, is about designing houses for villagers according to their requests. Scanning Amiibo cards unlocks the houses of special characters. Amiibo Festival, a party game for the Wii U, came out in November 2015.

  Pocket Camp, announced in April 2016, soft launched in Australia in October 2017. Its worldwide release came on the 21st of November 2017. A statement posted on the 21st of August 2024 announced the end of service for the 28th of November, and a paid version without microtransactions, Pocket Camp Complete, replaced it.

  Before all that, the paid Happy Home Paradise expansion for New Horizons arrived on the 5th of November 2021. The player designs vacation homes on an archipelago. Wardell, a manatee, runs the shop in its headquarters, and Niko, a small monkey, waits on the docks. The expansion also added the Room Sketch and Happy Home Network apps to the NookPhone.

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• 6. Sales and Scores

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  New Leaf sold 13.04 million copies, the best figure among the first four main games. Wild World reached 11.75 million. City Folk sold 3.38 million, and the original game 2.71 million. Happy Home Designer sold 3.04 million. Each of those first four main games ranks among the best-selling titles on its own console.

  New Horizons surpassed the lifetime sales of every earlier installment within its first six weeks. It became the second best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch. It was also the first console game to reach five million digital sales within a month, a surge often credited to social distancing and stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Game Awards 2020 named it Best Family Game.

  The money followed. An estimated US$2 billion in gross revenue came in during its first year, as of March 2021. That was the fifth highest first-year revenue for any video game. The mobile Pocket Camp had grossed over US$150 million by April 2020.

  Not every release did well. Amiibo Festival met unfavorable reviews and sold only 87,872 copies in Japan. Happy Home Designer holds a Metacritic score of 66 out of 100, which signifies "mixed or average reviews". Pocket Camp holds 72.

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• 7. Beyond the Village

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  In WarioWare: Smooth Moves, released in Japan in 2006, a minigame copies the fishing mechanics of Wild World. Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008 went further. Its stage, Smashville, changes scenery with the Wii system clock and plays remixed songs from the original game. Mr. Resetti appears there as an Assist Trophy, and 24 collectible trophies are drawn from the series.

  Wii Music includes two playable songs from Animal Crossing. In Nintendo Land, the minigame Animal Crossing: Sweet Day has Wii Remote players gathering candy while avoiding Gatekeepers controlled by the GamePad.

  The Villager became a fighter in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and again in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Its moves include catching rivals in a net and firing Lloid the gyroid as a missile. Isabelle appears as an Assist Trophy and later as a standalone fighter in Ultimate.

  Mario Kart 8 added Villager and Isabelle as downloadable racers, along with an Animal Crossing track and the Crossing Cup. In June 2015, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate gave the player's Palico companion Isabelle and Mr. Resetti costumes.

  Outside games, the anime film Dōbutsu no Mori, based on Wild World, opened in Japan on the 16th of December 2006. It earned ¥1.8 billion at the box office. A manga based on New Horizons began serialization in Monthly CoroCoro Comics in June 2020. Viz Media licenses it in North America. In March 2024, five Lego sets with Animal Crossing characters went on sale.

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• 8. Audience and Protest

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  Satoru Iwata, then president of Nintendo, reported that 56% of people who ordered New Leaf with a Nintendo 3DS were female. He found it particularly noteworthy that the game succeeded with women between the ages of 19 and 24.

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, democracy activists in Hong Kong used New Horizons as a platform for protest. The game was not officially unavailable in mainland China, but it was removed from online stores such as Taobao. Parallel import copies kept selling.

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