It’s been just over two months since we launched the Animal Crossing Diaries, presenting a wonderful collection of stories of how players around the world engaged with Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With a new update to the game arriving… today!… and the passing of Daylight Savings Time on 31 October (the spookiest clock change in recorded human history), the winter months will soon be upon us in the Northern hemisphere and on our virtual islands!
So this seems like an ideal time to talk about some particular entries to the exhibition that celebrate this seasonal change towards the colder weather and the longer nights.
Elijah Erickson’s entry “Shaping 2020” contains imagery that is steeped in the snowy side of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including a neat little island tour showcasing his island during a winter’s evening.
Elijah’s entry doesn’t just showcase the temperature and climate changes evident on the island, but it also conveys a very communal sense of how the season passes with the game’s updates that were introduced across 2020: “When the holiday events started rolling out, it was very cool to see the stuff that was being added. For example, Turkey Day. Basically thanksgiving, but not. A special NPC comes by and you gotta help em’ cook food. Gather fish, mushrooms and fruit. It took me awhile to do that, but it was fun in the process.”
Passages like this reiterate how patterns of interactivity between players and Animal Crossing: New Horizons emerged during different times of the year. Other entries to the exhibition also demonstrate these patterns of community and togetherness during the winter months.
For instance, Lesleyanne’s entry “Game In-Game” captures the communal and playful spirit of the season, conveying how people were still able to uniquely socialise and communicate on their virtual islands during a difficult period of self-isolation in the real world.
“I started building the island from scratch in the hope it would be ready for Christmas, and after many long nights of creating the island, it was ready…I created a Santa’s Grotto and dressed my character from my main island as Santa and the kids had the chance to have their photo taken with Santa and grab a gift, something they couldn’t do in real life.”
This quote from Lesleyanne’s diary entry really emphasises how players made meaningful social connections through Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Not only that, these social interactions were truly unique reimaginations and recreations of in-person activities that simply could not take place during the COVID-19 pandemic, transporting the on-hold festivities of the real world into the virtual islands of the game.
If you want to see more of how people kept routines, find the Keeping A Routine section in the exhibition to examine more entries.
Want to read more about our Animal Crossing Diaries project? Check out some of our responses relating to love and friendship and lockdown wellbeing here.
