Animal Crossing's Unexpected New Remaster Is A Hit With Gamers

2002 was quite a long time ago. In gaming terms, we've seen more than twenty Call of Duty games come to fruition and back then, we truly believed the next great Duke Nukem game was almost upon us...little did we know! It was also the year that we saw one of the greatest cozy games release on Nintendo's funky little GameCube. As an update to the Japan-only Dobutsu no Mori for the Nintendo 64, Animal Crossing on the GameCube was not exactly the first in the franchise, but it launched the franchise into the global stratosphere.

All these years later, and not only are we wishing that Duke Nukem had stayed in development forever, but we're finally getting to replay an absolute banger of a game on modern hardware. A true passion project has been fully realized and, thanks to a Reddit post from chicagogamecollector, we've now learned that playing Animal Crossing on PC is no longer a pipe dream. The GameCube Animal Crossing decomp port is now available for PC, and the fan reaction is glorious.

Animal Crossing Has Returned, And It's On PC

Tom Nook Is Breaking The Internet

IGDB

The PC port launched officially earlier this week, and although it's not yet pixel perfect and is missing a few options, the fan reaction is still amazing. It seems this overlooked GameCube gem will now get a new lease on life and hopefully capture the hearts of a brand-new generation. With a great PC port comes great responsibility and the potential for future improvements is endless. Reddit commenters are in agreement.

EternallyAries remarked on how it opened up options:

"You have full access to all resources and can mod it natively without any limitations, this pc port isn't held back by gamecube limitations, so if you have a ray tracing capable card, you can add ray tracing to this game. You want the game to take full advantage of your computer resources? You sure can with some pretty intense mods that can be made for this pc port."

Other commenters couldn't help but wonder about the endless possibilities that having a native PC port of the game would open up. As monkeylicious mentioned:

"I think additional items to have in the game would be awesome. There could be others to adjust the time of day shops are open and closed. I would like the day length to change more drastically between seasons - longer days in summer, shorter in winter. There could be a "eviction notice" item to immediately evict a villager, etc."

This Unofficial Port Is A Hit With Gamers

No More Emulation Restrictions

The news of Animal Crossing's port release on PC has been warmly received, and the positivity shown throughout the community is truly heart-warming. Nintendo may soon be kicking themselves that the company make a version of the game available through Nintendo Switch Online, as there's clearly money to be made here. Hopefully, Nintendo's lawyers don't take any legal action, but decompiling games is generally in the clear as long as the copy of the game itself is obtained legally.

Seeing a Nintendo classic re-imagined and getting a fresh lease on life is fantastic. We've already seen Zelda: Ocarina of Time launch on a new console, but getting a native PC port of a classic like Animal Crossing really opens up the doors for content creation. With a growing community of modders and enthusiasts, the list of possibilities is endless. Now if someone could just make a mod where Tom Nook has to pay us money...we'd be ever so grateful. Well, well, well, how the turntables!

Released September 16, 2002

ESRB e

Engine Havok