If you thought video games were just a place to escape the real world and pretend that politics doesn’t exist (which is sounding pretty good right now) you would be wrong. Why? Well, besides being used by Hong Kong activists to stage virtual demonstrations earlier this year, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is being adopted by the Biden campaign as a place to pledge your support.
More specifically, virtual signs to display on your virtual lawn endorsing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign are being made available from September 1 (slightly less to-the-point than the in-game version of Sports Banger’s ‘Fuck Boris’ t-shirt, but there you go).
Accessible by scanning the relevant QR codes, the signs feature four designs supporting the Democratic candidate, some bearing Biden and Harris’s names, and another depicting Biden’s aviators in red, white, and blue.
While they might not earn a place in the catalogues of the game’s professional interior designers any time soon, the Animal Crossing signs are a pretty logical step for the ongoing digital campaigns in the 2020 US election, which have largely replaced IRL campaigning since the outbreak of coronavirus.
Previously, Biden’s campaign has also seen him take part in a 16-minute interview by Cardi B.