News GamesIndustry's Game of the Year 2020 is Animal Crossing: New Horizons

[Rum]

That feeling of pure, undiluted sunshine was, for me, Animal Crossing: New Horizons throughout 2020, and I have no idea how I ever entertained the notion of anything else as my favorite game this year. Plenty of ink has already been spilled on how it was the game we needed in 2020 when we were all stuck in our homes due to the ongoing global pandemic. I won't retread that ground, except to say, of course it was. It was a social space; a slow-paced, long-play game perfect for wiling away days, weeks, and months, and a bit of happiness in an otherwise dark time.

That's because New Horizons, like the other Animal Crossing titles before it, asks you to rejoice in mundanity. The reward of every action you take in this town may have been Nook Miles in the beginning, but this game was never designed to be a short sprint. It's always been a marathon, meant to be played year-round for the sheer joy of catching Muffy singing in the plaza, finding a brand new DIY, or catching sight of a rare double rainbow.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons | Games of the Year 2020

Before last week, I was sitting on a fence between naming one of two utterly wonderful, smaller games (anti-RPG Moon an…

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[PGen98]

Hard to argue with this choice, it practically was gaming for a good chunk of 2020, so it's a very good choice. That and it is a really good game, so completely agree!