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Like many people, Im a relatively new (but dedicated!
I shake all the trees on my island daily, hoping to find cute new furniture.
I water my flowers; I chat with my animal villagers.
Giving them any kind of story is pure projection, an act that happens entirely in the players mind.
Inside The Able Sisters, its different.
Theresdrama,therestragedy,theresfamily tension.But many players have no idea, because the game hides it from you.
When you startAnimal Crossingyou live on a mostly deserted island.
Its a standardAnimal Crossinginteraction, helpful and fairly bland.
By and large, the animal characters in the game are polite.
But Sable ignores you.
If you return the next day and ask her to talk, shell say shes busy again.
Sable, you discover, is much older than Mabel.
Heres where stuff gets extra dark.
Sable resents Label for leaving.
Mabel scolds Sable for suggesting their sister is ungrateful.
What is Labelsproblem?!
Do Sable and Mabel even like the tailor business?
What is this deeply sad story doing hidden inside this overwhelmingly twee game?
With no earlier clues that Sable has something interesting to say, many players ofNew Horizonsjust ignore her.
Theres a Sable character arc??
Many people told me they wouldve never thought to keep chatting with her, because it seemed so rude.
Of the people I spoke to who had chatted with Sable, there were many passionatefeelings.
Like, SO SAD, one player said.
It seems pretty tragic for such an otherwise happy game, said another.
I despise Label, added a player named Jess.
I think she is selfish.
So much of the appeal ofAnimal Crossingis in its calm, soothing simplicity.
But maybe its not that far off from where manyAnimal Crossingplayers minds wander while playing the game, anyways.
But she had come up with a narrative for them all on her own.
