Animal Crossing is officially celebrating its 25th anniversary today (April 14), and what a year it is for the series to reach this big milestone. Tom Nook and his burgeoning real estate empire have come a long way since Animal Forest first released in Japan on the N64. The series has continued to shape and inspire the cozy life sim genre over the last two decades, and its influence has never been more apparent than it is in 2026.
We've already seen a big game like Animal Crossing making waves in Pokemon Pokopia this year, and the imminent arrival of Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is about to take a leaf out of Animal Crossing: New Horizon's book by letting you develop your own island, too. But even though both of these new games share some fundamental DNA that Animal Crossing helped popularize, the way both Tomodachi Life and Pokopia stand apart from the likes of New Horizons speaks to an exciting future for cozy life sims. It feels like we're in a golden age for the genre right now, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
