Animal Crossing: New Horizons reviews dropped overnight. There’s currently 59 reviews live on Metacritic, but you won’t find any from Australian outlets. For some bizarre reason, despite the fact that there’s a decent amount of reviews around the world, no Australian outlets were given the opportunity to review the game ahead of time. Normally, we wouldn’t point this out, but we feel that we’ve been on the forefront of Switch coverage in Australia since before it launched, so it’s definitely sad to not be able to tell you what we think about one of the most highly anticipated franchises of any Nintendo generation. We did get to play the game for an hour at Nintendo’s HQ last week, and posted our thoughts HERE.
The good news is that the game is currently sitting at a 91 on Metacritic, This is higher than Animal Crossing: New Leaf (88) and Animal Crossing: Wild World (86).
Forbes gave the game a 10/10 and said: Know that if you’re overwhelmed with the world, stuck inside, or adrift in a life that you know will look totally different next week — get Animal Crossing.
VG247 gave the game a 10/10 and said: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is everything I hoped it would be, and it’s yet another stellar release that showcases a confident Nintendo at its best. It is excellent, and is easily another must-own Switch title – at least, if you can understand and embrace Animal Crossing’s uniquely lazy pace.
Game Informer gave the game a 9/10 and said: New Horizons has a lot to see and do, and much of the joy comes from discovering it on your own. I still get a kick out of the real-time elements, such as how a construction project that takes a day to complete takes a real day’s time to finish, or how the various merchants keep actual store hours. That little hook keeps me excited to check back in later when I end each session. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has something new to experience every day, and, best of all, it’s built on a foundation of joy and earnestness that’s all too rare. If the tradeoff is that I have to craft a few fishing poles, I guess it’s worth it in the end.
IGN gave the game a 9/10 and said: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an expanded, polished, next-generation reboot of a classic Nintendo game that’s full of surprises.
GameSpot gave the game a provisional 8/10 and said: New Horizons certainly has a slower pace than other Animal Crossing games, partially because you have to work to get things up and running on the island at the start. And while I’m impatient to discover what upgrades might be coming my way (and I need to mess around with Island Designer more), I still feel as though I’ve done a lot on my island. I’ve crafted tons of furniture, upgraded my house seven times, picked thousands of weeds, and done far too many drastic outfit changes. I’m as excited to see what random events await me each morning as I am to decorate my island and make it my own, and that’s sure to keep me coming back for the foreseeable future.
