Animal Crossing, as a franchise, is all about taking it easy. Sure, the grind for Bells and furniture is never-ending, but at its core, the game is about escapism and making your own little virtual home away from home.
Not. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a number of punishments in store for players who abandon their islands for too long, and while not severe enough to make you want to delete and start from scratch, a long period of absence might just have you turning off your switch and thinking, “Nah, not worth it,” for a few more months.
So you’ve decided to step away from New Horizons for a few months. What can you expect upon return? Weeds all over any undeveloped areas of your island, cockroaches in your home, a gnarly bedhead, and worst of all, a solid two-thirds of your villagers hunting you down to ask after where you’ve been. Trees will have regurgitated their sticks left and right, sprouted fruit or bags of Bells, and you’ll find your island pockmarked by dig spots.
But wait, there’s more: check your mail and you’re sure to find a few scathing letters from the Happy Home Academy about the state of your island. Weeds dock points, roaches in your house docks points, so on and so forth. Don’t worry about your house’s ranking dropping too low, though; even with an island full of weeds and roaches running wild in the rooms, the Happy Home Academy won’t let you drop below a C-rating if your island is established enough. But what happens to your island after years of abandonment? A full decade?
Kotaku’s Ari Notis decided to find out. After time-traveling a decade into the future, Notis returned to an island that was… more or less the same. If your island was already in shambles, it’ll stay in shambles. Villagers don’t move away, although every single one of them will have complaints about you disappearing on them for so long. Thankfully, a decade is long enough for the Happy Home Academy to get the memo that their ratings are entirely unwanted. Notis received only one letter from them.
While returning to your island after a long period of absence is definitely a pain in New Horizons, it’s altogether not punishing at all!
Source: Kotaku
