We all know there is no shortage of things to keep you busy in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. From furnishing your house to perfection, to wiling away hours in your garden, to hunting down every bug, fish, and sea creature the game has to offer and checking them off in your Critterpedia, there's bound to be something to suit your tastes.
So what do you spend most of your time doing in the New Horizons universe? That's the question the folks over at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire, UK, were interested in getting an answer to.
Fuelled by their love for the game and its themes around nature and conservation, they set off on a research spree using Google search phrase analyses to identify which in-game activities people spend the most time doing. Or at the very least, which ones they spend the most time trawling Google for information about.
By categorizing groups of related keyword searches, Blue Planet concluded the following:
- New Horizons players seem to be dedicating the most time to adding new discoveries and exhibits to the local in-game museum which is run by Blathers the owl. More specifically, that includes donating bugs, fish, paintings, and fossils to be displayed in the museum.
- Landscaping is the second most popular activity. This is particularly telling, seeing as it's something you can only do once the main story is complete. It seems players really are notably dedicated to the peripheral aspects of the game, beyond its main events.
- Other activities sharing similar interest level percentages are bug catching and fishing (which would make sense considering they're museum-related activities), socializing with the island's villagers, and gardening.
- The least popular activities appear to be visiting other islands and upgrading the player's house.
The latter is somewhat unexpected, though. Considering there seems to be a prevailing appreciation towards the game's outlets for creative expression amongst Animal Crossing players, you'd expect the particularly creative act of upgrading one's house would be of more interest. Then again, these stats don't necessarily mean that players are or are not genuinely interested in these activities, just that they're spending a lot more (or less) time searching for them on Google. Certainly interesting nonetheless!
Source: Blue Planet Aquarium, Banc