It may be one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2020 but some players are organising a revolt over Animal Crossing’s one island rule.
The Metacritic score for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is 91 out of 100, making it one of the highest rated video games of the year, but the User Score at the moment is just 5.2 out of 10.
At time of writing 1,973 people have given the game a negative rating, which is not what you’d expect from a game that has been breaking sales records and is the fastest selling digital title in video game history.
It’s not unusual for gamers to decide to ‘review bomb’ a game for spurious reasons (being a format exclusive is a common excuse) but in this instance the complaint is that the game only allows one island and is too restrictive in what it allows other players, other than the game’s owner, to do.
None of the Animal Crossing games, going all the way back to 2001, have had more than one more island per profile but New Horizons made a big fuss about allowing up to eight people to live on the same island, which is more than usual.
However, only the first player – typically the owner of the game – is allowed to fully interact with the island and build homes, with everyone else being restricted to little more than gathering resources.
Clearly this is to encourage them to buy their own copy and while it’s largely how the series has always worked many players are clearly not happy, especially being stuck in lockdown with many members of the same family wanting to play the game.
Many of the Metacritic comments are calling on Nintendo to change the game to allow more than one island or remove the restrictions, but that is extremely unlikely to happen.
There are also complaints about the game’s lack of cloud saving, which means if a console is lost or damaged all progress will be lost.
This is to stop cheating, but Nintendo has grudgingly agreed to work out some kind of system for restoring people’s saves if they are lost – although so far they’ve been very vague about the details.
Rather than the usual vitriol of review bombs most of the comments on Metacritic are quite reasonable, although there’s a minority that just seem upset they can’t cheat, as this selection shows:
‘The game is fun and relaxing but the one island per console set up is going to cause me a divorce. I played the game first without realizing my wife would be a completely second class citizen on my island. Basically all the decisions get made by me and she can’t participate in the story at all. Really upsetting. It’s a great game but honestly if two people in your family want to play it it’s not worth it.’ – Jaygeereviewme
‘I’m really dissapointed with this game :( In my house im with my little cousin and my sister, and One island per console?! The only way to get another is to buy another console I don’t mind buying another copy of the game but another console is too much. I’m leaving such a negative score in the hopes nintendo has a change of heart. :(‘ – Vanelis
‘total waste of money. u can only get so far each day and u have to actually wait real time until morning. oh and if u time travel u earn less interest. better to not play it than to suffer by yourself’ – AbnormalAdept
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