Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a social game focused on creating a cohesive town filled with colorful personalities. Players spend their time working to design the most interesting and unique town for their villagers to call home. There are many social mechanics to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including the ability to use reactions to express emotion through a player's character, as well as connecting with friends online to visit each other's islands. However, romance is a mechanic that is sadly missing from the game.

While most slice-of-life simulation games have features that allow players to have romantic interactions with NPCs or other players, Animal Crossing is missing this popular mechanic. Games like Story of Seasons have marriage candidates players can interact with during the course of the story, and Stardew Valley possesses a number of Bachelors and Bachelorettes as well. However, Animal Crossing fans won't be waking up next to the light of their life in New Horizons, missing out on the sweet interactions that can come from in-game romance.

Related: Animal Crossing: Starting A New Island Makes Deleting Your Save Worth It

While some fans of the series have built Animal Crossing wedding ceremonies on their islands, as well as set up cute dates, romance is limited to roleplaying after flying to each others islands via the Dodo Airlines. While this is a cute and creative way to use the wi-fi options and adorable decorations of Animal Crossing to create a special experience for IRL partners, it leaves players wanting more in-depth romance scenarios related to the game's narrative without any options.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Needs To Add More Love

To introduce romance into the game, Animal Crossing needs to add more humans. With a handful of human NPCs, Animal Crossing fans could romance characters that are part of the game's narrative. They could also ask the character to move into their expensive house with them, giving the player's character a companion to share island life with. Romance options could also give players a new list of tasks, as the ability to marry a villager could be contingent on accomplishing a certain number of house upgrades and finishing the Able Sisters shop to purchase a proposal item.

With players already able to visit each other's islands, it would be interesting to see Animal Crossing introduce an mechanic where players could marry or date each other, like in the multiplayer marriage options for Stardew Valley. This could be achieved by using the same proposal mechanic with another player instead of an NPC, and allowing them to interact in romantic ways available with the NPC romance options. While it isn't clear if Animal Crossing: New Horizons will ever consider adding romance to the different interactions players can take part in, the addition would give fans a new way to build a life on their island home.

Next: Animal Crossing: Villager Greeting Ideas