Today on Culture of Gaming, we’ve got something quite special, writers. Will & Mike have a theory. Animal Crossing does more in line with sin than Doom. We’ve seen all the memes and the Isabelle x Doomguy fan art. To that, we say nay! On the surface, Doom certainly looks like it raises more Hell through ripping and tearing, but Animal Crossing has a very sinister underbelly.

To prove this, we’re going to take a look at the seven deadly sins, and show just how Animal Crossing is more sinful than Doom.

Sin of Lust (Will)

Lust, or letting yourself be consumed by desire, might not seem like a sin relevant to Animal Crossing. Relevant to Doom? Sure! The Doom Slayer loves to mumble the phrase “rip and tear” and is constantly talking about killing demons… he might need some help actually.

But we’re here to tell you why Animal Crossing takes the cake in terms of sins. So how exactly is it a lustful experience? Well, the titular Villager sure seems to have an insatiable desire for some other townsfolk. I don’t claim to know what goes on inside the Villager’s head, but constantly talking to neighbors, giving them gifts, and just waltzing into their homes isn’t exactly normal.

Does the Villager have some feelings bubbling under the surface? It certainly seems like it. It isn’t normal to harass the people you live with to make them your friend, so that looks like a sin to me.

Maybe the Villager wants to be… more than friends?

Sin of Sloth (Mike)

The Sin of Sloth is often known to be one of the most difficult sins to define. To keep things simple, we shall define it as a habitual disinclination to exertion, or laziness.

For Doom and Doom Eternal, your attention is kept from the moment you start until you put it down. For the latest title in the series, the length of the game is set at around 20 hours. You are encouraged to be active at all times to keep up with what’s happening on screen. The last thing you will find yourself doing is sitting around.

For Animal Crossing, it can hardly seem like a game with urgencies. The game not only encourages you to “take it easy” and not rush, it actively encourages you to spend days doing nothing. You can wander around, but you always have to wait for the next day to do more. It’s a game that discourages going fast and will actually reprimand you if you dare try mess with the clock.

Sin of Gluttony (Will)

Gluttony, the notion of consuming or using something to the point of waste, definitely doesn’t apply to the Doom Slayer. Not only is he quick and concise in terms of dispatching the demons. He never talks, and from looking around the Fortress of Doom, I’d hazard a guess that he doesn’t eat either.

However, the towns of Animal Crossing have you taking literally every piece of fruit available from the trees, only to then plant them again for no-one but yourself. Think about it. Do you give other villagers the fruits to share? Or do you just hoard them in storage or leave them on the trees so they “look nice?”

I think you know the answer to that question. Honestly, we all just act like food hoarders and think it’s totally fine and normal. The ironic part is that we’ll barely even eat them! We don’t need to. Animal Crossing uses this sin just as waste.

Sin of Greed (Mike)

Do we really need to explain how Greed relates to Animal Crossing?

Doom, on the other hand, is not only a game that wants you to use the resources you find; but encourages you to use them to help you fight off the forces of Hell. When we look at recent titles, you can see the generosity you get from the various guns you get to use. You don’t have to “Buy” anything since you can go up to a demon hellspawn, rip and tear into them with your bare hands or chainsaw, and it will kindly pay you back with ammo to use. How thoughtful of those creatures you are brutally slaughtering.

On the opposite end, you have Tom Nook. Animal Crossing might not seem to have an antagonist, but if it was to be anyone, it would be this Terrible Tanuki! It’s bad enough that he plays as your landlord. It gets worse when you consider how he wastes no time in putting you into massive debt. This creature takes advantage of the unaware newcomers just to fill his pockets with all those Bells.

If that wasn’t bad enough, think about the plot to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It’s Tom Nook that sends you off of a deserted Island and expects you to build it up from the ground up. You might think it is a paradise getaway. What you don’t realise is that Tom Nook has taken you and all the other residents’ hostage to build him a Vacation Island so he can profit off of your hard work! For Shame Tom Nook! For Shame!

Sin of Envy (Will)

The Doom Slayer arguably doesn’t have any emotions… well maybe rage. But certainly not envy. He just wants to kill demons; he doesn’t care how it gets done. He might be envious of someone else with a BFG-9000, but he wouldn’t let that stop him doing what he does best.

Animal Crossing takes this sin to a whole new level, however. If you don’t like another villager, perhaps because they have nicer things, like to boast, or just seem cooler than you, you can just get rid of them. Whack ’em with a net a bunch of times, stop talking to them, encourage them to leave… poof, they’re gone.

Animal Crossing makes it too easy to commit this sin. If you’re jealous of another villager, getting rid of them comes with minimal effort. To me, that’s just sad. Why would Nintendo actively fuel a player’s envy? Guess we shall never know.

Sin of Wrath (Mike)

Now you might think that if there’s anything Doom can win in, it would be Wrath. And in fairness, that isn’t that hard to consider… At first.

Now, look at a few of the games from Animal Crossing, and you will see how much more decisive this makes people. Just recently on Metacritic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons saw a review bomb from fans who very angry about the limits placed on them. Do you really mean to say that if multiple people in a household want to play New Horizons, they are stuck to one island, and it focuses solely on the first place? And that one person gets to enjoy the full Animal Crossing experience while everyone is stuck as side characters?! Needless to say, fans are not happy about this, did raise several concerns about this already.

I know what you’re thinking, “Well, that’s unfair to point at one game for bringing more wrath than the other game that has you literally murder demons.” To which I have to say- WRONG! Because there was another Animal Crossing game that brought out even more anger from fans of the series, and that game was Amiibo Festival!

You really mean to say that for a series that usually had a new game every three years, the best they could do between the eight years was a board game?! And not just that, but we also had a game that wanted you to design homes and a mobile title too? It’s clear that when you compare the two series, only one brings out more anger in their fanbase, and it isn’t the one that lets you murder demons with chainsaws…

Sin of Pride (Will)

Every sin comes back to pride. It can often be called hubris, a Greek word – where an excessive amount of pride, akin to gods, leads to nemesis. Nemesis being the downfall of someone with excessive hubris. Now Doomguy definitely doesn’t have pride or hubris. He kills gods because of their own pride. He’s the avenger, the balancing force in the universe. The Villager, or you, on the other hand…

What would you call someone who has total autonomy over the people around them? They can kick out or welcome anyone they like, terraform the land as they see fit, and even change economic stability on the fly. Everyone around them only interacts with them, and greatly misses their presence when they’ve been away for too long.

Honestly, that sounds exactly like a god. As a villager, you may not have divine powers, but you’re pretty darn close. So if anyone says Pride isn’t part of Animal Crossing, they’re dead wrong. But don’t worry, your nemesis will befit the crime, you’ve got thousands of weeds to pick up.

So Animal Crossing Is More Sinful Than Doom

Ok, we aren’t serious. Really, with the way both communities interact with each other, it’s actually rather nice to see how something as simple as “having your game release at the same time,” can bring everyone together. Yeah, it’s silly to imagine the Doomslayer being best friends with Isabelle or giving Isabelle a double-barrel shotgun so she can rip and tear.

Just know that, especially in these troubling times, we all have to band together whilst having a few good laughs along the way. Just like Isabelle and Doomslayer, we can push through these times as one. Stay safe, murder those demons, and don’t sell out to Tom Nook.

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