Animal Crossing: New Horizons made friend codes cool

Things were not normal in March 2020, to say the least. As the world started to spin apart due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other terrible things happening simultaneously in the U.S., solace took an unexpected form for many gamers: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was released five years ago Thursday.

Nintendo’s cutesy life simulator carried significantly more weight on its shoulders than ever before. People have always used games — particularly cozy games, like Stardew Valley — as an escape from the stressors of life, but the thirst for relaxation in 2020 was dire, and the masses converged on New Horizons, a veritable geyser of joy. And with a robust multiplayer system, the game proved that not even the Switch’s dreadful friend code system would keep people from inviting online friends and strangers to their New Horizons islands.

As of Dec. 31, 2024 (just two weeks before the Switch 2 was officially unveiled), it sits comfortably as the Nintendo Switch’s second-best selling title behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — selling 15 million more units than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — proving Animal Crossing to be of Nintendo’s major franchises. While most popular online multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to link up with others, Nintendo’s friend code method (as well as New Horizons’ one-time-use Dodo Code option) are tantamount to telegrams. And yet, trading friend codes felt, dare I say it, cool for a while.

It felt like everyone was playing New Horizons, so exchanging friend codes gave you round trip tickets to hang out with someone during an otherwise isolating time. It felt strangely intimate and vulnerable to show your virtual home to visitors, hoping that they’d admire your interior design chops (and ignore the pesky roaches running around). Not only that, you got to do a lot of other things during visitation, including scoping out their island’s layout, snagging some native fruit, and buying unique items on offer by Timmy and Tommy. And, of course, taking advantage of the local turnip prices.

During a period of historic financial instability, players enjoyed flocking to New Horizons to buy and sell “stalks.” This capitalism simulation introduced many to buying and dumping investments, sometimes selling at tremendous profits — or at losses that’d have you swear off stocks, I mean stalks, for good. Each player’s island has a different buy and sell rate for turnips, and having a low buy/high sell combination meant that your island instantly became the hottest travel destination of the moment. At the game’s peak, you could have probably gotten away with charging actual money in exchange for a Dodo Code that granted access to your island. Maybe some of you did!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons likely could have kept finding ways to please players for years to come. That said, I respect Nintendo’s decision to stop the flow of new, major updates in late 2021 with the introduction of update version 2.0 and Happy Home Paradise, the game’s only paid DLC. It gave players more content to experience, yet it allowed the game that took the gaming world — and Nintendo — by storm to end on a high note. And I haven’t used friend codes since.