Animal Crossing: Pandemic Nostalgia

6 min readMar 15, 2024

Conversations around the pandemic and nostalgia are usually centered around the last few moments of innocence we shared: seeing Sonic in theaters, watching JLo and Shakira at the Super Bowl, or celebrating Parasite’s Oscar win. So, it might seem counterintuitive to discuss nostalgia for the early COVID-19 lockdown. Yet, I have nostalgia for a very specific time during the pandemic, circa March 15, 2020. A time between Animal Crossing New Horizons’ release and before the New York Times put 100,000 names on the front page.

You can watch a video version of this article here.

On nostalgia

Having nostalgia for Spring 2020 has made me reflect not just on that time period but on the feeling as a whole.

You’ve probably heard that “fun” fact that nostalgia started as a disorder but in modern times is in no way considered a mental illness. But I think it’s important to bring up because so much of our nostalgia is commodified or weaponized that we would do well to think back to its roots. If anything else it at least reminds us that Nostalgia, by even modern definitions, includes elements of melancholy.

There is a fine line between reminiscing and “feeling nostalgic.” Reminiscing is looking back on something fondly. Nostalgia is the feeling that comes when we realize reminiscing is all we can do. Keep in mind, depending on the memory or vibe, the joy of reminiscing can overpower the melancholy; the fact it happened at all can make that nostalgic rush a positive and pleasant experience. For example, healthy nostalgia is remembering fun times with a friend you met in college. You reminisce with them the next time you hang out. You don’t want to go back to college you just like your friend.

However, the other side of that is when you are feeling nostalgic about some happy memories with a friend you’ve lost touch with. The happy memory is chained with the memory of drifting apart. You can’t even find that friend on social media. You don’t even know if they are OK.

Animal Crossing and the lockdown

Enter the time in our lives when Animal Crossing New Horizons came out. I brought up that issue of the NYTimes COVID cover because that’s what set all of this off for me. When I was going through some things recently I stumbled upon it and the first thing I thought of… was the week Animal Crossing came out. The shutdowns started happening March 15 and 5 days later, on March 20, Animal Crossing New Horizons was released. If you recall, On March 15 some people were like, “Nintendo… save lives… release it early, we are stuck at home” (this was very silly even in the moment). This lil’ phenomenon actually starts to illustrate just why I have a deep nostalgia for late March/April 2020. At the beginning of the lockdown, there seemed to be a plan. We are stronger together. We are going to go into lockdown and support each other from home. The essential workers are heroes! Let’s protect the essential workers! Looking at you, GameStop (beyond silly no matter the time). We’ll make our fun at home and a big way a lot of us will do that will be playing Animal Crossing.

Me reflecting on nostalgia with Wolfgang.

This time of us “all” playing Animal Crossing from home at the start of the lockdown is, whether I like it or not, a core memory for me. Core memory unlocked [cool thanks]. My housemates and I ate a lot of ramen and played a lot of animal crossing in the living room. I got a ladder early because of that. Thanks, Gary! The online community for the game was fantastic. Nintendo’s spotty online infrastructure be damned. Friends I missed seeing were on my island. I was seeing their personality in a very unique way. This probably wouldn’t have happened if not for the pandemic. People who did not play games the way my partner and I do were suddenly sinking hours into a video game. Even non life sim gamers were getting into. In fact, I wasn’t going to get Animal Crossing. A few days before the start of the official lockdown I started Skyrim again. But the FOMO, the solidarity of looking for something to do together, apart, put Animal Crossing in my hands and millions of others. This was a hard time, but this was hardship shared together. Pardon the comparison but it’s similar to getting in trouble in high school with a friend. You were served out punishment together. The harm of the punishment was almost replaced with the “together.”

Burst illusion

But it turned out this was all just an illusion. I was in my bubble. This wasn’t a lockdown together. This oppression on an individual level. It turns out more people on my island were wearing masks than in my rural hometown. I can remember the exact moment: after finishing my chores in Animal Crossing I got on my laptop to look at the latest news. I couldn’t believe what I saw: protest. Protests for what? You can’t protest the virus away. Seeing the photos of the protestors pounding on the glass of a government building like zombies immediately burst my illusion. I guess we were not in this together. Like everything in my adult life, it’s just another fight between the left and right. I was almost afraid to open animal crossing and learn Grizzly is actually in the MAGA crowd and he thinks I’m a cuck. Nurses weren’t heroes they were liars. My right to not wear a mask has no bearing on essential workers. I thought we were in it together but now it’s just another entry in the soul-draining culture wars. Remember, nostalgia is melancholic because something has been lost.

My burst illusion completely crumbled into vaporized dust on May 24, 2020 when I picked up the Sunday paper and was greeted with 100,000 names. I think for a lot of us, this was when Animal Crossing turned from a fun escape to a necessary escape for our mental health. Togetherness or not people were dying. We were failing to prevent the pandemic. People were going to continue to die. The only place safe from the pandemic was in Animal Crossing.

So either way, thank god for Animal Crossing. My partner and I had each other, our pets, and our islands. Silly little islands. Thank god they were so silly.

4 years later

Four years of gameplay later I can pick up Animal Crossing and not be hit with nostalgia. I’m just excited to play my game. I’m getting close to completing my art museum (no thanks to Redd). I’ve been working on that this whole time and I’m in no rush (thanks to Redd). But when springtime rolls around and I’m playing animal crossing I get nostalgic for the start of the pandemic lockdown. Nearly any time COVID comes up I think of Animal Crossing and I get nostalgic.

It’s been helpful to take a dive into why I get those feelings. When I get nostalgia for something, I’ve started diving into it. I think, “why I am nostalgic for this specific time and what were the feelings that brought happiness in this time.” The harder part is to not stop there: why did the happiness go away, how can I move on, how can I find happiness in now. After this reflection, I’m using nostalgia to move forward.

This has taught me to have a healthy relationship with Nostalgia. I’m not fighting the feelings, I’m trying to understand them. I have goals of not letting my nostalgia exploit my bank account but I also have this bigger goal to add thankfulness to the feeling of nostalgia. I want to turn my feelings of nostalgia into feelings of thankfulness…

…I’m thankful I had Animal Crossing in my life at that point. I’m thankful Grizz doesn’t even know what MAGA or COVID is. He’s just my virtual-old-grumpy-bear friend. I’m thankful it made me realize I had friends to share in the enjoyment of Animal Crossing. I had real and virtual friends in a shitty time and sometimes that’s enough.

Animal Crossing: Pandemic Nostalgia

On nostalgia

Animal Crossing and the lockdown

Burst illusion

4 years later

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Written by Alex Starr

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