These are the sorts of discoveries the Internet was made for. Animal Crossing: New Horizons features a fantastic chess easter egg that few players would really have even noticed.
As New Horizons fans know, it’s the tiny details that really make the game such a joy to play. Blathers’ squirming fear when you give him a new bug for the museum, your villagers plopping down on the grass in the shade of a tree, Tom Nook and Isabelle stretching as they take breaks from sitting at their desks all day (it’s super important to do this)… all these elements just make an Animal Crossing island that bit more charming and vibrant.
The closer attention players pay, the more intricate details they’ll notice. Have you ever looked closely at the game’s chessboard? You really should, because one of the most highbrow easter eggs in all of gaming has been discovered on its black and white surface.
To the layperson, the arrangement of the pieces on the board will mean very little. As an observant chess enthusiast on Reddit has pointed out, however, the arrangement is actually a reference to “Kasparov’s Immortal,” a famous match between legendary chess grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topolov.
As you can see above, at one stage during this iconic showdown, the pieces were placed in exactly this fashion. Granted, this doesn’t have the remotest effect on gameplay and the board is only a decorative piece that can’t be played with, but still. This is just one more example of the bewildering level of detail that the team put into every inch of the Animal Crossing world.
NEXT: Creative Redditor Bakes An Animal Crossing Cake That Looks Exactly Like Tom Nook
