Animal Crossing GameCube

Animal Crossing, the game that truly kickstarted Nintendo's increasingly popular life sim franchise back on GameCube in 2001, could find itself earning a place in The Strong Museum's World Video Game Hall of Fame.

The Strong is a New York-based museum that "houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play," including a whole lot of toys and video games. For a title to be accepted into the museum's Hall of Fame, it must have "enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general."

For 2021, twelve games in total have been listed as potential candidates for a hall of fame induction:

– Animal Crossing
– Call of Duty
– FarmVille
– FIFA International Soccer
– Guitar Hero
– Mattel Football
– Microsoft Flight Simulator
– Pole Position
– Portal
– StarCraft
– Tron
– Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Here's what The Strong has to say about Animal Crossing:

"Nintendo’s Animal Crossing debuted in 2001 and found mass appeal with its open-ended social simulation and leisurely gameplay. Players took on the role of a human moving into a village filled with anthropomorphic animals. The game had no specific objective, giving players the freedom to complete activities and collect objects as they liked. The mellow gameplay proved a success with casual and advanced gamers alike, and it bred numerous sequels.

The game’s latest installment for the Nintendo Switch proved a huge hit during the pandemic isolation of 2020, breaking the record for the most digital downloads of a console game in a single month."

The winners will be announced on 6th May, so we'll have to wait and see whether or not Animal Crossing manages to grab a spot. In recent years, games like Pokémon Red and Green, The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario Bros. have all been accepted.

Would you like to see Animal Crossing be inducted into the hall of fame? Do any other titles from that list hold a special place in your heart? Let us know in the comments.

[source museumofplay.org, via nintendoeverything.com]