A year ago, as the United States just started to enter COVID-19 quarantine, two games arrived that so beautifully yet oddly went hand-in-hand.Animal Crossing: New HorizonsandDOOM Eternallaunched on the same day, May 17, 2025, and brought with them gameplay and memes that made players locking themselves in their homes a bit more bearable. A year later, both games are going strong with fresh content to please fans, new and old.
WhileAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsmay be the poster child for quarantine gaming,DOOM Eternalstill played a huge role in occupying gamers' time. Both games having the same release date gave birth to a meme that combined the unlikely duo into a cute yet slightly horrifying couple. Given several names such as Doomguy and Isabelle or “DOOM Crossing: Eternal Horizons,” the meme sawAnimal Crossing’s Isabelle and theDOOMSlayermaking quite the scene as quarantine gamers' ultimate power couple.
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DOOM Crossing: Eternal Horizons
Originally, theAnimal Crossing x Doom Eternalmemesstarted back in October of 2019 on Twitter, and it did not take long for the meme to catch on with fan art and videos of the pair in various cute and/or gory situations flooded the internet. The sheer outrageous nature of the combination just fueled the fire, with the meme peaking shortly after both games' release.
Memes continued to roll in with fans of both games posting images of theDOOMSlayer purchasing a copy ofAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, as well asIsabelle and various otherAnimal Crossingcrittersgetting their hands on copies ofDOOM Eternal. When the official Nintendo of America Twitter account posted about anAnimal Crossing: New Horizonslive stream was scheduled to air on February 20th, 2020, the officialDOOMTwitter account replied to them, “will Isabelle be there.” The fact that both developers have acknowledged the community’s love of theDOOMSlayer and Isabelle pairing drove fans into an even higher fervor, unleashing more and more content around them.
Rip and Tear
DOOM Eternalhas had a great year, with a former employee of id Software reporting thatDoom Eternalearned over $450 million since its release. As such, it’s hard not to wonder if the additional word-of-mouth marketing of the whole DOOM Crossing: Eternal Horizons phenomenon had a part of that. It certainly did not seem to harm sales at all.
It didn’t end there, withDoom Eternalreceiving two major DLCs post release. The latest,The Ancient Gods Part 2, was released just a few days ago. Both DLC follow up the main story ofDOOM Eternalfurther continues toDOOMSlayer’s quest to rid Earth demons and The Dark Lord.
IfDOOM Eternalhad a good year, then there is no word to describeAnimal Crossing:New Horizon’s year. The game sold over 31 million copies by the end of 2020 alone. 11.7 million of those sales were within the first 12 days of the game’s release.New Horizonscould not have released at a better time, with many quarantined in their homes due to COVID-19. The game’s real-time clock, chill atmosphere, and social nature of visiting others' islands and swapping gifts helped people stay occupied and connected digitally when theycould not visit each other physically.
WithAnimal Crossing: New Horizon’sconstant content updates, it was able to keep players occupied for longer than many other games on the market at the time. The game’s slow pace helped to ease the nerves of players and gave them small daily goals to accomplish and share with their friends. Once it came time to start the Stalk Market, the game exploded with new communities popping up online and new friends made daily.
The polar opposite ofDOOM Eternal,Animal Crossing: New Horizonsfilled a different need for gamers at the perfect time. Currently celebrating its first anniversary,New Horizonsis prepping for Bunny Day’s return, the first major event the game saw back in 2020.
A Strange Year Indeed
Opposites attract, and they provide the perfect look into what 2020 was all about.DOOM Eternalmay have given time to let loose and shot whatever demon popped up, whileAnimal Crossing: New Horizonshelped to calm the nerves of players, keeping their minds off the horrors of the world for a bit while they socialized peacefully, building communities and making new friends. Just like theDOOMSlayer and Isabelle proved they could each provide each other with valuable life experience, each game provided for quarantine gamers' needs in different yet complementary ways.
Animal Crossing: New Horizonsis out now for the Nintendo Switch.DOOM Eternalis now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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