Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream is the escape we all need right now

On March 20, 2020, my pre-ordered copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons arrived at my doorstep. It was fortuitous timing, with stay-at-home orders declared for my state little more than a week later. What followed was a solid six months of pure escapism, complete with the millennial dream of homeownership, tending to a garden, building community, and doing a bit of insider trading (in the form of turnips) on the side.

While my Animal Crossing island now sits mostly abandoned (sorry, villagers), I always look back at what should have been a really scary time in the world with a weird sort of fondness, warmth, and nostalgia.

A little over six years later, and that feeling is creeping back up on me. The circumstances have changed, but the world is no less scary, and we’re still looking for ways to escape. As for me, I’ve found it in the form of yet another cosy island-based life sim game: Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Having missed out on previous Tomodachi Life instalments, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and just assumed it would be a weird rip-off of Animal Crossing. However, it quickly became clear that Tomodachi Life was no Animal Crossing—it was far more unhinged.

The first thing you need to know about Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream is that, because it features no online connectivity, it has no censorship whatsoever. You can create Miis (villagers that you design and name) of real-life people, characters from movies, or even your pets. I’ve seen players on TikTok with Mii versions of everyone from RuPaul to Bob Katter.

Importantly, you can also make your Miis say anything (and I mean anything) you want, resulting in some bonkers interactions. Any topic you give your Miis to discuss will enter the island’s lexicon, meaning anyone on your island is free to talk about it. Because I am an immature child trapped in the body of a 30-something woman, my Miis are foul-mouthed creatures who discuss activities that should not be brought up in polite company, let alone an article on a respectable website.

I made a Mii of my dog, Hazel, which looks particularly cursed, since Miis are generally supposed to be humans. She lives on the island with me, my wife, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files, Shane and Ilya from Heated Rivalry, just about everyone from Interview with the Vampire (the TV show, not the movie!) and a smattering of other pop culture personalities. One big, happy family.

The creative freedom I mentioned earlier also extends to in-world objects. You can make custom clothing, building interiors and exteriors, food, books, and CDs. Currently, my Scully is jamming to Brat by Charli XCX. This, to me, is canon. A friend of mine recreated The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and handed it out to their Miis. A random girl on TikTok made a gourmet food dish of “one cigarette on a plate”, which quickly became a favourite of their Mii version of Clippy from Microsoft Office. The possibilities are endless.

Like Animal Crossing before it, Tomodachi Life operates on real-world time. Certain things only take place at certain times of day, and it’s the kind of game you’ll probably pick up for a few 15-minute sessions a day, not sink hours into at a time. Again, as Animal Crossing did in 2020, this play style has lent itself well as an escape from The Horrors of 2026. The oil crisis can’t reach my island; there aren't any cars. There’s no war on my island; geopolitics isn’t a thing. Inflation and interest rate rises? Never heard of her.

But that's where the similarities end. Where Animal Crossing's brand of escapism was wholesome, cutesy, and focused on bringing people together by inviting friends to your island and sharing creations, Tomodachi Life is kind of the opposite. It's for the sickos—and I say that with the utmost affection.

With no online connectivity, there's no way to visit friends' islands, and due to the lack of censorship, Nintendo won't allow you to share screenshots or videos captured from the game (well, not easily). That means there's nothing stopping you from making your island, your Miis, and their vocabulary as insane as you want. After all, the only person who can see what nonsense you get up to in the game is you. And that's kind of beautiful.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is available to play on the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.