It’s easy to see why fans wanted a new Animal Crossing game so badly. The last main entry in the series was Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which was released eight years ago in 2012. Since then, the only source of new Animal Crossing content have been spin-offs like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, which certainly don’t replicate the core Animal Crossing experience. With the series being brought to HD and a slew of new features such as island terraforming, it seems like this could be the perfect Animal Crossing game for fans both new and old.

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As early reviews trickle in, fans will be able to see how Animal Crossing: New Horizons is being received across the board. For old fans, hopefully these reviews will show that this game was worth the eight year wait; for new players, these reviews will ideally be a chance for them to justify getting into the Animal Crossing series. Here are a couple of recent reviews of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Destructoid (CJ Andriessen)

Score: 85/100

GodIsAGeek (Adam Cook)

Score: 10/10

NintendoLife (Alex Olney)

Score: 10/10

Screen Rant (Cody Gravelle)

Score: 4.5/5

IGN (Samuel Claiborn)

Score: 9/10

GamesRadar+ (Sam Loveridge)

Score: 4.5/5

Polygon (Russ Frushtick)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a respite from the current state of the world. I find my general anxiety slowly subside as I run through my town, water my plants, and build furniture for the sassy chicken gentleman living down by the beach. It’s exactly what I need right now.

There are moments when I look up from a long session and realize that I’ve been ignoring everything around me. Then I take a look around at what actually is going on around me, and realize that maybe I’d better stay in my island paradise for a little while longer.

Score: Unscored

With that, it looks like Animal Crossing: New Horizons is exactly what fans wanted from a new game in the series. Similarly to Pokemon, it appears that Animal Crossing: New Horizons sticks to its core gameplay loop—which is part of its entire appeal—while adding new and fresh content in order to keep that loop engaging. At the same time, this sort of slow, calming, social interaction-focused game has a special appeal, especially at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has forced people to isolate themselves. That being said, if someone wasn’t a fan of the game before, it doesn’t seem like this Animal Crossing game will make a die-hard out of them. But, for fans of the genre and experienced players alike, Animal Crossing: New Horizons seems like the game that they have been waiting for.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases March 20 exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

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