Around this time, everybody starts reflecting on the past year and what it meant. What memories will we keep from it, and specifically for us, what games were our favorites? Top ten lists go up across Twitter, and we call the game in the number one spot our personal "Game of the Year."
But 2020 was different. It was devastating. It will be the subject of documentaries. It could encompass an entire chapter in a history textbook. In all my life, there has never been another year like it.
Sure, humanity has weathered disasters in the past. And sure, most of the time, goings-on in the real world have been at least possible to ignore when considering the game of the year. Last year, however, the entire world's population -- all 7.6 billion of us -- went through some version of the same thing. We all experienced some amount of isolation, sadness, and loss over the COVID-19 pandemic, and there was one game from 2020 that arrived at exactly the right time to provide togetherness, joy, and respite from the horrors of the world. If there is one game from last year that will forever define the year in my memory, it is Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
