Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the latest addition to the popular Nintendo series of animal life-simulators, will feature extreme poverty, alcoholism, and prostitution.
The game begins with the player moving their character to a cheerful island full of anthropomorphic animals.
However, as the player explores, they discover parts of the island are much more run-down than others and are blighted by crippling poverty.
Players may see animals struggling to pay the rent on their homes, animals drinking heavily and habitually to distract from the misery of their lives, and even some animals turning to prostitution in a desperate attempt to escape from poverty.
“I think that players demand more realism from Animal Crossing,” explained director Aya Kyogoku.
“And, whilst there are no real-life examples of islands full of talking animals, or none that have yet been discovered, it is important that people understand that, if there were, they would have areas of extreme poverty and deprivation.
“We will not shy away from starkly representing that.”
Players will be able to do their best to alleviate the poverty by creating job-centres, alcoholism-treatment centres, and homelessness shelters, but will have to balance that with the anger of other animals on the island who face increased taxes to pay for such facilities.
“It’s a problem,” continued Kyogoku, “Buck the Rhino works hard, really hard. He wants his new zebra-print rug. Why should he not be able to afford that rug at the end of the month because he’s been taxed to pay for an std-clinic for prostitute animals in the poorer areas of the island?
“That said, when you balance that out and see poverty on your island decrease, and have animals able to afford new lamps and coatracks, it becomes really satisfying.”
Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be released next month and pre-orders will feature a collectable soft-toy of Dave the giraffe, passed-out drunk, with vomit down his waistcoat.
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