The Stanley Parable

The broad appeal of The Stanley Parable is easy to understand; it lacks a complex control scheme and doesn’t ask for long gaming sessions, and the experimental narrative sandbox is instantly gripping. You can casually sit down for 10 minutes at a time going through different routes as you come up with different ways to annoy the narrator. This narrative choose-your-own-adventure experience breaks the fourth wall many times, constantly poking fun at the illusion of choice in narrative-driven video games. Like others on this list, The Stanley Parable can be categorized as a visual novel just as much as it can a video game, though it smartly pokes at what it means to be a video game through its unique first-person interactivity.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

The first Hellblade was pretty groundbreaking when it came out in 2017. Sure, the combat wasn’t amazing, and the level design left something to be desired, but the immersive quality of the main character’s audio-visual hallucinations was new and interesting. Hellblade helped push the interactive medium by putting players into the mind of someone suffering from Psychosis. The team wanted a game that let players experience the mental illness itself, and not just the reactions of characters experiencing it. This was expressed by voices in Senua’s head rather than just text on a screen. Hellblade was played by many outside the gaming space who wanted to experience something new and different, and that included nurses and doctors wanting to understand Psychosis as well as casual players looking for a different kind of narrative experience.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Any Animal Crossing game could earn a spot on this list, but New Horizons gets an edge up due to being on the Switch and selling a whopping 45 million. Animal Crossing is pretty much the ultimate cozy lifestyle sim, one that doesn’t demand too much time to thoroughly enjoy. The gameplay philosophy of taking on little bite-sized tasks every day can apply to real life, and it’s one of the reasons people from all walks of life love it. The portable on-the-go functionality of the Nintendo Switch adds to the mass appeal of Animal Crossing: New Horizons further, giving otherwise-dull vacations and business trips added fun as players meet new villagers and find ways to pay off Tom Nook’s loan.

The Witness

Braid was one of the first indie games to really go viral back in the late 2000s, and we had to wait quite a long while for Jonathan Blow’s next game. 8 years later, The Witness arrived and challenged what a puzzle video game could be. The Witness is about as pure a puzzle game as you can get. There’s no music, no plot, and no gameplay to speak of other than walking and solving the creative grid-based line-connecting puzzles. Puzzle aficionados can feel right at home with The Witness’s escalating complexity without worrying about control scheme worries or typical multimedia layers like sound and cinematics getting in the way. The only knock against it is that it’s still not available on Android, and that someone hasn’t converted its puzzles into book form yet.

Detroit: Become Human

With 85 possible endings and a myriad of different paths, Detroit: Become Human is the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure game. The plot revolves around a dystopian sci-fi Detroit being overrun by android sentience, but the developer’s style is what really makes the game unique. Also, it’s got the best branching choice flow chart in a game to date. Detroit: Become Human is a real delight to watch and play, making it an ideal streamer game for gamers and non-gamers alike.

Undertale

It’s difficult to pin down how or what exactly got this RPG indie sensation so popular. Undertale employs a 2D aesthetic and despite its niche and retro inspirations, Undertale attracted many new gamers into the fold, resulting in a surge of people going back to play the older classics out of curiosity and passion for the style. The story isn’t your typical grandiose journey, and the gameplay merges genres like bullet hells into its battle system, making for a unique and fresh experience that has sparked an interest in such genres to newcomers.

Super Mario Odyssey

Being one of the most popular and highly rated Mario games to date with 27 million in sales is no small feat. It’s true that pretty much every mainline Mario game has wide appeal and moves consoles, but Super Mario Odyssey had a trick up its sleeve, or should I say, a hat? The transforming Cappy hat, swimsuit Mario, and Jump Up Superstar big band song instantly entered meme status, capturing a wide audience as a result. And we’re thankful the marketing caught on because Super Mario Odyssey is one of the most fun and well-designed 3D platformers of all time.

Celeste

Despite being a punishing platformer, Celeste has some of the most user-friendly difficulty options in the genre. The options allow you to play how you want with the amount of air dashes, stamina, and invincibility available as a toggle. Also, the game is just so quick to jump in and out of thanks to the snappy respawn and checkpoints for every room. Beyond the flexible gameplay, the story is broadly appealing with the main character’s down-to-earth battles with anxiety, all told through a supernatural mountain climb.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley ticks all the casual boxes and does it with a surprising amount of depth. You can farm crops and stake your place in the valley at a leisurely pace, or you can work toward seeing the post-game content with a successful farm and wife. Stardew Valley has a lot of management sim meat on its bones despite its casual appearance, leading players to try out more involved games lacking the kind of convenience features this game has.

Firewatch

Firewatch is another one on this list that’s perhaps just as enjoyable to watch as it is to play. The dialogue between the two fire dispatchers, Henry and Delilah, really carries this game with the charm and witty banter. It’s also got a mystery element woven through the narrative as you’re left questioning if Delilah is well-intentioned, working as a spy, going nuts, or all of the above. The down-to-earth nature of its premise and laid-back gameplay help give Firewatch a broad appeal.

Journey

Everyone reading this already knows about Journey, so I’ll spare the summary. Journey is one of those games that gets instantly recommended to non-players, and for good reason. It’s impossible to fail at, has an attractive audio-visual core, and provides an interactive experience you can’t get elsewhere. The lack of UI cluttering the screen eases new players to dive in without hesitation. And who doesn’t like sand surfing? It’s just so easy to pop into a session without needing to use your brain and tense up your gaming reflexes. Journey would go on to be a true journey into the wide world of video games for many newcomers to the hobby.

Portal

Originally developed as a school project titled Narbacular Drop, Portal went on to inspire independent games as a concept. The inventive portal tool gets our brains to think outside the box as we solve Glados’ test chambers. The narrative brims with inventiveness as the test subject, Chell, seeks to break free of the testing and find a new path forward. Portal remains one of the most creative and unique games ever created. It’s one of those games that breaks the boundary of the entertainment box it’s in, compelling gamers and non-gamers alike to experience its quirky and unpredictable narrative. Even with first-person 3D controls, non-gamers couldn’t help but experience such a novel, mind-bending game.

Inside

It’s astonishing how simple and understated the gameplay and aesthetic of Inside is, yet it’s still hailed as one of the most unique gaming experiences. Like Limbo before it, the intro of Inside has you simply walking forward without any exposition or explanation. You’re left to wander and figure things out through exploration and carefully constructed environments. If the dark atmosphere wasn’t enough, there’s also some horror sprinkled in with little jump scares and tense moments that help push Inside further into the annals of casual game stardom.

The Last of Us: Part 1

The Last of Us manages to hit that sweet spot appealing to those outside the gaming sphere while still being challenging and ‘video-gamey’ in its own right. Now that The Last of Us TV show is out, non-gamers are flocking to the remake of the first game more than ever. The game’s setting ticks all the boxes of a modern series-seller: zombies, post-apocalypse, survival, father-daughter bonding, drama. The Last of Us: Part 1 also happens to punch us right in the gut with one of the most impactful openers in any form of media, let alone video game. It’s easy to see why The Last of Us got its own TV series and a remakes after the original’s release in 2013.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

We all knew The Legend of Zelda could sell systems and rise to the top of Metacritic ratings, but who could’ve predicted Breath of the Wild’s tremendous success? When Breath of the Wild first came out, it was often called the best game of all time. Taking Zelda fully open world revitalized the genre and helped draw in new players who wanted to explore at their own pace. The open exploration is accompanied by flexible abilities like Magnet and Stasis, which allow for a wide range of creative solutions to puzzles and ways to play with items, enemies, and the environment around you. Sure, the weapons break way too fast in Breath of the Wild, but many players could overlook that due to the vast world and limitless ways to play the game. Many fans of Breath of the Wild would go on to try out other games afterward, revitalizing the genre with a new set of admirers.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

While noting that the title had sold 37.42 million units worldwide since launching in March 2020, Nintendo revealed that over 10 million sales were from Japan alone. As such, it’s now Japan’s best-selling video game. The previous record was set by Super Mario Bros. in 1985 with 6.81 million units sold.

Post-launch support for Animal Crossing: New Horizons wrapped last year, though Nintendo launched its first paid expansion with Happy Home Paradise. This allowed for creating vacation homes for villagers, customizing the furniture, layout and much more. For more details, check out our review here.

Which means that it’s probably good that there’s so much of it added. It might sound weird for a game that had players lose literally hundreds of hours to it – again, this isn’t an exaggeration – but New Horizons was actually a bit light on the content compared to its predecessors. It’s easy to assume that the original intent had been for that content differential to be made up with constant content updates being doled out over a year or so (not unlike other Nintendo games such as, say, Splatoon), but reality and 2020 intervened. What this means, then, is that we get a massive chunk of new content, features, and mechanics, all in one go. To such an extent that it can frankly be a bit overwhelming when you boot the game back up after a while (“overwhelming” is a funny word to use in relation to Animal Crossing, by the way, but seriously, there’s a lot of new stuff the game throws at you).

"With the free 2.0 update, we get a whole bunch of additions and improvements that collectively do more than enough to have New Horizons by itself match and even exceed New Leaf (the previous game in the series) as far as the core game package goes."

As far as the free update goes, you get boat tours with Kapp’n, ordinances to give you further control over how your island develops, new mechanics such as cooking, returning characters such as Brewster, new items (over 9,000 of them, apparently), songs, recipes, reactions, character customization options, furniture, villagers, mechanics such as group stretching and open air markets, expanded storage settings, and just a whole bunch of other additions and improvements that collectively do more than enough to have New Horizons by itself match and even exceed New Leaf (the previous game in the series) as far as the core game package goes.

These are smartly integrated changes too. The core loop of Animal Crossing and especially New Horizons remains undisturbed, and while there’s a whole lot added to it, after you are first informed of it all, you’re also left alone to tackle it at your own pace. It was calming after the initial information dump induced anxiety had subsided to just return to my island and chill there with the villagers who call it their home, spending time in its cozy atmosphere, and its surprisingly beautiful aesthetic.

Happy Home Paradise, the paid expansion, adds a whole lot on top of all that. Essentially acting as the equivalent of Happy Home Designer, the standalone Animal Crossing spin off Nintendo released for the 3DS, it builds on that release, and ties it in to the things that New Horizons itself did better than any previous title in the series – which is to say, customization and flexibility, more than had ever been afforded to the player before.

The setup here is simple, as you go work building “vacation homes” for several villagers who are looking for a holiday. Each of these villagers gives you a basic idea of what they want – a theme of what they want their vacation home to look like, and some furniture and decorations that are non negotiable and need to be in there no matter what. Everything else from there on – and I mean everything else – is up to you. You get to decide the location of this new home, what the exterior looks like, what the interior looks like, what wallpapers you use, what the flooring is like, bookcases, shelves, lighting, drapes and curtains, lawn decorations, fences, even, in fact, the climate their house is in, getting to choose from the four seasons based on what you feel might work best for what they are looking for.

"You get to build and design your house however you want – and it’s liberating and really rewarding to be able to do so."

It’s an incredibly relaxing loop, because the game really puts no pressure on you. You have access to a pretty wide catalog from the get go (and you keep getting access to more options and items as you go), and you get no restrictions, other than needing to include the couple of items that the villager wants at all costs. There’s no rebuking, and no criticism – the warm and fuzzy vibes of Animal Crossing mean no matter what, you’re always doing a great job, and everyone will tell you that you are. It’s very difficult to actually “fail” – I think the only way to do it is to not include the items you are told to include. Short of that, no matter what you do, your clients will always be happy.

Which, at first, can feel almost a bit deflating – the lack of a scoring or grading system can mean that you’re really not working towards anything at all, and why not include one when the game already has it for your own home (you get weekly updates from them grading your home based on the design, decorations, layout, and furniture)? But, ultimately, this is right in line with the spirit of Animal Crossing, isn’t it? You’re never doing things in these games because you’re told to. There’s barely any objectives or external rewards trying to get you to do anything.

No, whatever you do in Animal Crossing is because you want to, and Happy Home Paradise takes on that spirit, and marries it with the strong customization options and tools the base game had, along with the player’s own curiosity and desire to exercise their own sense of aesthetic. Happy Home Paradise is an excellent game at letting you design and decorate houses and dwellings uninhibited – you’re not restricted by needing to own the items (because you get access to the catalog provided by the Happy Home Academy, and it keeps growing as you spend more time in it), you’re not restricted by needing to optimize your score or grade, you’re not restricted by needing to do anything. You get to build and design your house however you want – and it’s liberating and really rewarding to be able to do so (and it feels even nicer when the game then lets you take a nice and stylish picture of your work to boot).

If you liked New Horizons, the 2.0 update alone is a staggeringly big one that should keep you going for at least as long as the base game itself did – seriously, whatever time you spent on that, just assume the update can double it if you engage with it like you did the base game. Happy Home Paradise, on top of that, is the perfect addition to have sitting on that now wonderfully content packed and alarmingly cozy package, a great tool that exists to let players exercise their own creativity at their own pace, taking all the strengths that Animal Crossing as a series has traditionally been known for, and marrying them to the strengths of New Horizons specifically as well.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

The true star of the year has been the PlayStation 4; with the console in its final year before it makes way for the next generation PS5, one would expect things to be slowing down now, ceding the limelight to its successor. It wouldn’t even have been an unreasonable expectation – last year wasn’t the best for the PS4, after all, and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think that beyond the handful of releases Sony had lined up for the console this year in order to ensure that its next generation system would hit the ground running.

The PS5 did in fact hit the ground running. But it as the PS4 where Sony’s true prowess as a platform holder was on display, with an inspired slew of releases, from AAA to indie, third party to first party, Japanese to western, multiplatform to exclusive, and any other categorization you might care to come up with. In this, the final year of the console’s life as Sony’s flagship, it got Nioh 2, Resident Evil 3 Remake, Fall Guys, Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion, Sakura Wars, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 HD, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Spelunky 2, Cuphead, Streets of Rage 4, Trails of Cold Steel 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War… this isn’t counting some great first party releases, from Dreams to Ghost of Tsushima, Spider–Man: Miles Morales to Sackboy’s Big Adventure.

And through all of this, I haven’t even mentioned the knockout titles the PS4 got, with the console receiving an unprecedented three 10/10 titles this year – Final Fantasy VII Remake, the first part of Square Enix’s ambitious reimagining of their 1997 seminal hit; Persona 5 Royal, the culmination of P-Studio and Atlus’ craft, delivering arguably the best RPG of all time, and one of the best games in generation; and The Last of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog’s bold and ambitious follow-up to their 2013 classic, which subverted expectations and delivered one of the most daring stories the medium has seen, and one of Naughty Dog’s best playing games ever.

The full range of games the PS4 got was truly mind-boggling. It doesn’t matter what kind of game you like, the PS4 probably had you covered this year regardless. A year such as this for a single console at any point in time is remarkable, of course – but to deliver such an outing in the console’s last year on the market is an unprecedented feat. Going all the way back to the NES, I can’t think of a single console or handheld that ever went out on such a high note. Not even the much vaunted PS2 managed this. Truly, this final year firmly cements the PS4’s legacy and elevates it to an all time great console.

While the other consoles didn’t quite hit these same highs, they had reasonably strong showings in and of themselves. The Xbox One, for example, got some of the strongest games Microsoft’s first party has put out in a while, including Ori and the Will of the Wisps (another GamingBolt 10/10), Wasteland 3 (inXile’s surprisingly excellent and compelling sequel to the disappointing revival of the classic cRPG), Tell Me Why (Dontnod’s excellent and empathetic graphic adventure game that showed them moving from strength to strength), as well as the more disappointing Bleeding Edge and Minecraft Dungeons.

All of this was in addition to a bunch of great multiplatform games that it shared with the PS4 – Yakuza 7, Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed, Immortals, Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot and Resident Evil. This, of course, isn’t even counting some belated releases the system saw this year, such as Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2. The console certainly had a bit of a blow with Halo Infinite‘s delay (which also hurt the Xbox Series X, of course), and in general, Microsoft’s weakness with first party titles and exclusive third party games (the latter of which, at least, Microsoft is looking to address with the Series X), did mean it wasn’t quite as incredible as its rival, but even so, the Xbox One ended on a very strong note this year.

Nintendo had a very quite year in 2020, and while that sort of thing can color perception, they really didn’t need to do a lot of talking, because the Switch was firing on all cylinders this year as well. Now, to be fair, it was nowhere near as good a year for it as 2017 or 2019 had been. In fact, this was easily among the worse ones the system has had. But even accounting for that, the Switch actually managed to deliver a surprising number of great games. The star of the year was without a doubt Animal Crossing New Horizons, Nintendo’s radical rethinking of their life sim franchise that hit at exactly the right time, giving everyone around the world the escape they needed from COVID-19 and the lockdowns that ensued. New Horizons became a phenomenon, basically becoming the kind of runaway success that we saw with Pokemon GO back in 2016, and probably is responsible for single-handedly propelling the Switch to its meteoric success this year.

Animal Crossing aside, the Switch also saw some other first party titles, including Paper Mario: The Origami King (which was surprisingly great), Mario Kart Live (the augmented reality Mario Kart spin off that gave us the kind of left field swerve we expect from Nintendo at this point), and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Clubhouse Games (a pretty easygoing board game collection for the Switch which was perfect for this long summer), C the Dynasty Warriors style prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo also re-released a bunch of their older games on the Switch, from Xenoblade Chronicles Definitve Edition, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Super Mario 3D All Stars.

All of this was in addition to a surprisingly strong showing of third party support for the system as well, with games such as Trials of Mana, Kingdom Hearts: Memory of Melody, Catherine: Full Body, XCOM 2, Borderlands; The Handsome Collection, Burnout Paradise Remastered, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered, Metro Exodus, A Short Hike, Raji, Rune Factory 4, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, CrossCode, No More Heroes, No More Heroes 2, Streets of Rage 4, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and of course, Game of the Year contender Hades (which Switch was actually the only console beneficiary of).

Again, this wasn’t the Switch’s best year, and Animal Crossing and Hades aside, there weren’t any big heavy hitters – but it was a well rounded lineup, and helped bolster the Switch’s library further (albeit, of course, it was thoroughly outshone by the PS4, which shone with the brilliance of a thousand suns).

Everyone was a winner this year as far as games go, because each of the three current generation consoles did extraordinarily well, even though the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch were quieter than than the competition (and in the Switch’s case, quieter than even its past few years). But once you put aside the console warring that inevitably comes with the territory when discussing games, you will see that what we got this year was one of the strongest outings that this medium as a whole has had – and in the end, what more could you really ask for?

The thing is, all of this has happened without any actual action from Nintendo. I mean, yes, releasing Animal Crossing, as well as smaller releases such as Paper Mario or Xenoblade, does count as action, but I mean action more in the sense of any actual moves made by Nintendo to help push hardware. On one level, this makes sense. The Switch is routinely out of stock throughout the world, which seems to imply Nintendo can’t meet current demand – so trying to increase that demand even more when they can’t fulfill the deficit is a fool’s errand.

The problem, though, is one of long term engagement. Nintendo has always been a secretive company, and with rare exceptions, likes to announce games very close to their release – but that has been stretched to absurd degrees this year. Coming into 2020, the only Nintendo first party games with confirmed release dates were Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Recore and Animal Crossing New Horizons. The expected Nintendo Direct that is broadcast in January or February every year, revealing most of the lineup for the next 12 months? Didn’t happen. Instead we got a smaller scale Nintendo Direct Mini at the end of March, which only confirmed the release date for two additional first party games (none beyond June), though it did admittedly include a fair few exciting first party announcements.

Then, randomly in May, Nintendo announced Paper Mario The Origami King, due out in just a little over two months. And, that was it. Paper Mario came out earlier this month, and as of right now, there is absolutely no Nintendo first party game with a concrete release date. Things are a bit dire as far as communication from the platform holder goes.

Now, the Switch, unlike its predecessors, is an actual healthy ecosystem, with an ongoing stream of third party and indie releases, and a library literally numbering in the thousands – so it’s not like there’s any shortage of things to play. But if you are a fan of Nintendo’s own output (which I have to assume you are if you own a Switch), then the rest of this year looks… empty. Blank. There’s nothing lined up. In the absence of the regular early year and E3 Directs, Nintendo has decided to give us absolutely nothing except stone cold silence.

Obviously I’m not saying Nintendo doesn’t have first party releases planned for this year. This is a company that will often stack the last three months of its release calendar at the expense of literally every other part of the year, so it seems really unlikely that they wouldn’t have anything planned for the Holiday season (especially one in which they were aware new consoles would be launching). But the only problem is, we don’t know what those games are. And Nintendo isn’t talking. At a time when the company was expected to break its silence with a new Direct highlighting the next few months of releases, they instead held… a smaller form of a Nintendo Direct Mini (so a mini Mini), which featured a total of four new games, one of them a budget WWE game, one a free to play hero shooter, and okay, admittedly Nocturne HD and Shin Megami Tensei V look awesome, but neither is releasing until next year at the earliest. So… 2020 remains blank.

The problem here appears to be COVID-19 (obviously). With the pandemic, and the resulting shelter in place orders leading to everyone scrambling to have to work from home, it goes without saying that there must have been some disruption in Nintendo’s development cycle. And given how tenuous their ability to actually stick to a timeline can be under circumstances like that, it makes sense, from their perspective, to not announce a game unless they are absolutely, completely, fully 100% sure it will meet its release date beyond a shadow of doubt. 

The problem is that this has led to a lot of latent frustration with a fan base that has been left high and dry, a problem that has been made worse by the fact that the few times Nintendo has chosen to communicate, it has absolutely mismanaged fan expectations. This goes all the way back to January this year, when the final fighter for the first Fighter Pass of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was revealed to be Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses (I like Byleth, but it was absolutely an anti-climactic pick after getting such hype generating inclusions as Joker, Hero, or Banjo-Kazooie). The earlier Pokemon Unite reveal was probably the worst instance of not reading the room, with The Pokemon Company first holding a stream where they confirmed the existence of the long-requested Pokemon Snap sequel, before announcing another stream for a week later, that would have a “very special announcement.” Obviously, for that one week, expectations rose sky high, as fans speculated what this very special Pokemon game might be, before it was revealed to be… a free to play MOBA for mobile devices. People were definitely not pleased.

Then there was the Paper Mario Treehouse stream Nintendo held earlier this month, where they promised the world premier of a third party game. Which, again, builds expectations, expectations that absolutely were not met when said revealed ended up to be Bakugan: Champions of Vestoria, a new game based on the popular anime. Once more, people were not happy.

You can imagine a timeline where the response to the Bakugan reveal, or the short Nintendo Direct Mini we got earlier this month, was more positive – if they hadn’t been Nintendo’s only fan facing communication in months, people wouldn’t have cared that much that they didn’t live up to their expectations. The problem is that Nintendo hasn’t communicated anything at all, so every single new announcement or reveal from them has the pressure to live up to the expectations of fans who are hoping for an announcement worth the now more than seven months that they have been kept in the dark. And smaller scale fare, no matter how good, simply cannot live up to that kind of pressure. Hell, most of Nintendo’s own franchises probably couldn’t.

Nintendo needs to be less afraid of the possibility that it might have to delay a game because of development troubles. People have been pretty understanding of game delays this year – with The Last of Us Part 2, with Ghost of Tsushima, with Cyberpunk 2077. If Nintendo announced Super Mario 3D World Deluxe for September, but then had to push it by a few weeks because of last minute disruptions caused by the unusual working conditions we are all currently subject to, the sky would not fall. I’m sure people would be disappointed, but it would be a far more moderate disappointment than the latent fury of a blue-balled fanbase that they currently face.

I’m hoping that they consider the response to their last few streams, and decide to actually let us have a peek beyond the curtain for a little while longer. Announce games that are more than a few months out, show off stuff that might be out next year (such as Bayonetta 3 or the new Zelda), and build some hype. Get your fanbase energized again. Because there are almost 60 million owners of the Nintendo Switch at this point – unlike the Wii U days, Nintendo can’t afford to ignore fan expectations for too long, because they have literally four times as many eyes on them. So here’s hoping that they speak up again, and soon – and that they don’t put their foot in their mouth again when they do.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

FIFA 20 has retaken the top spot in the UK charts for boxed video game sales last week, sitting in a position it is very familiar with. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which topped charts last week and has all around been selling very well worldwide since its launch, has been pushed own to the fourth spot. Last week saw a drop in total software sales in the UK over the week before that, but the total of over 200,000 boxed video game sales across the week is still a very strong figure, driven by spikes in console sales for the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch (via GamesIndutry).

In second place is Animal Crossing: New Horizons, pushing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare down to third place, and the former isn’t the only Nintendo Switch exclusives in the top 10. Perennial performers Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (No. 7), Luigi’s Mansion 3 (No. 9), and Ring Fit Adventure (No. 10) all figure in the charts as well.

Meanwhile, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order at fifth place, Grand Theft Auto 5 just behind it at No. 6, and Resident Evil 3 in the eighth spot make up the rest of the top 10.

You can check out the full top 10 for the week ending April 18 below.

1. FIFA 20
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
4. Final Fantasy 7 Remake
5. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
6. Grand Theft Auto 5
7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
8. Resident Evil 3
9. Luigi’s Mansion 3
10. Ring Fit Adventure

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been getting updates since its release on a pretty regular basis, and if it wasn’t already clear from the way Nintendo has handled post-launch support for major releases over the past few years, their latest release’s wild commercial success should be enough indication that they plan on supporting this game for some time to come. And according to details dug up from the game’s code by dataminer @_Ninji on Twitter, some of the updates coming up might introduce some very interesting new features.

Most interesting is the possible addition of mechanics that would be completely new to the series. There’s mention of being able to swim, which would yield fish (different from the ones you’d get from fishing) and seaweed. Perhaps taking a leaf out of Stardew Valley’s book, the code also includes data for players being able to plant and grow vegetables, including tomatoes, wheat, sugar cane, potatoes, carrots, and pumpkins. Meanwhile, new bushes – namely azalea, hibiscus, holly, hydrangea, camellia, and osmanthus – are also mentioned. Cooking, in fact, might be a whole new thing, with things such as recipes for dishes and various dishes themselves being mentioned (or at least hinted at) in the code.

New buildings might also get added. These include a museum shop and a museum cafe, with the latter also including a Gyroid section. Existing buildings might also get new upgrades, including the museum, which might be in line for two upgrades, and Nook’s Cranny, which might be in line for one more. The art section of the museum, which has been previously leaked, is also mentioned.

Speaking of art, it’s possible that the fake art mechanic might be coming back. It also seems the character Redd might be re-introduced, and that he might be docking his ship on the secret norther beach of the island. Additionally, there might be a whole new section getting added to the Critterpedia, under the category of “Seafood”, which apparently has 33 items. One of these – the manila clam – is already available in the game.

There is, of course, no guarantee that this stuff will ever see the light of day- it’s not uncommon for developers to add preliminary data to a game’s code for features that never end up materializing, so this is by no means confirmation of any sort that these are things Nintendo will be adding to the game. It is, however, evidence that they have at least given some thought to it, to the extent of making some preparations should they end up doing so.

If this stuff is in the pipeline, when it comes to the game remains to be seen. Not too long ago, the developers admitted that DLC plans might be delayed because of the ongoing pandemic. It is, however, possible that all (or at least some) of this stuff is added in the upcoming Earth Day update. Either way, we’ll keep you updated, so stay tuned.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently available for the Nintendo Switch. Read our review through here.

To no one’s surprise, Final Fantasy 7 Remake topped the UK charts for boxed video game sales in the week ending April 11, as we reported yesterday (via GamesIndustry). The game sold half as many physical copies as Final Fantasy 15 when it launched in December 2016, though not only is that down to most physical stores in the UK being closed due to a government-ordered lockdown, it’s also worth noting that Final Fantasy 15 launched during the Christmas period.

Physical sales in the UK on the whole, however, seem to be on the up. Over a million copies of games have been sold in the UK since the lockdown began, while if you include the week before that, the number goes up to 1.5 million, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons having had a big hand in that. Year-on-year physical sales are up 3 per cent, while sales this week are up 2 per cent over last week.

Resident Evil 3, which debuted in second place last week, has fallen down to No. 7, seeing a 78 per cent drop in sales. Meanwhile, curiously enough, The Last of Us Remastered re-entered the top 10. You can check out the full top 10 below.

1. Final Fantasy 7 Remake
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
4. FIFA 20
5. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
6. Forza Horizon 4
7. Resident Evil 3
8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
9. Grand Theft Auto 5
10. The Last of Us Remastered

The UK charts for last week’s boxed video game sales are in (via Push Square), and a couple of major new releases have debuted in the top 5. Resident Evil 3, Capcom’s newest survival horror remake, takes the second spot, in spite of retail shortages in Europe, while Persona 5 Royal comes in at the fifth spot.

On top of the charts, however, is still Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, as it was last week, while FIFA 20 gets pushed down to third place, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons to No. 4. DOOM Eternal has seen quite a significant drop, falling out of the top 10 entirely.

Forza Horizon 4, Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, and Grand Theft Auto 5 are all still in the top 10, but the last two positions see new games re-entering the charts. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Minecraft both see sales boost to come in at No.9 and No. 10 respectively.

You can check out the full top 10 for the week ending April 5 below.

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. Resident Evil 3
3. FIFA 20
4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
5. Persona 5 Royal
6. Forza Horizon 4
7. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
10. Minecraft

Animal Crossing: New Horizons had a stellar launch last week all over the world, but especially in Japan. It sold 1.8 million units in its first three days, becoming the biggest ever Switch launch in the region, and counting digital sales, that number exceeded 2.5 million. In its second week, as per Famitsu’s weekly sales charts, it has obviously dropped off, but still amassed extremely impressive sales, selling over 720,000 units. This takes it total physical sales in Japan to over 2.6 million units, which means it’s already within an inch of overtaking the lifetime sales of Mario Kart 8, and is outpacing Pokemon Sword and Shield and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well.

Meanwhile, Bandai Namco’s musou action title One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 has enjoyed a strong debut, with its PS4 and Switch versions occupying second and third place in the charts respectively. The PS4 version sold over 75,000 copies, while the Switch version managed over 61,000 unites sold across the week.

On the hardware front, the Switch has dropped off from last week’s record-breaking hardware sales, but Animal Crossing has still kept its momentum going, with sales of over 280,000 units.

You can check out the full software and hardware charts for the week ending March 29 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales):

01. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 727,791 / 2,608,417
02. [PS4] One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 – 75,998 / NEW
03. [NSW] One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 – 61,571 / NEW
04. [NSW] Pokemon Sword / Shield – 14,996 / 3,542,524
05. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 13,819 / 745,127
06. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 11,577 / 2,840,930
07. [NSW] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX – 11,501 / 218,394
08. [PS4] Nioh 2 – 11,270 / 129,302
09. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 10,355 / 3,623,274
10. [NSW] Minecraft – 9,908 / 1,331,839

Hardware sales (followed by last week’s sales):

Nintendo Switch – 282,561 (392,576)
PS4 – 10,820 (15,393)
Nintendo 3DS – 940 (1,022)
Xbox One – 310 (311)

[Via ResetEra]