As a certified woman, I love Animal Crossing, but not just because of the bright colours and the cutesy characters (although that does help) but also the category it fits into. I’m not quite sure the name of the category but to generalise is games which have no end goal.
Having nothing to work towards makes the game more fun in my opinion. You’re not pressured to do anything, no time limits and no restrictions. You can just run around and do nothing and it won’t matter since nothing is consequential.
They’re easy to jump in and out, so when you forget about it for a while and come back there’s no confusion of where you are out what you’re doing, and even if there is, like say you played Minecraft one time three months ago. You turn on the game and you’re stuck in a mine. It really doesn’t matter. You could continue further, you could turn around and find your bearings. There’s nothing in control and it’s so liberating. Exiting quickly is always easy too, you can’t get stuck in a level trying to defeat a boss for half an hour (Okumura boss fight I’m looking at you) when you need to leave for work in 10 minutes and everything is a disaster and you’ve wasted the last 2 hours because you forgot to save. Not talking from experience of course.
Another thing about these games is that they fill in a void for people in their late teens/early adulthood. As the economy is destroyed by baby boomers it’s harder to imagine a good life, so in animal crossing when you pay off a home loan or even your whole mortgage, it gives you a sense of accomplishment that seems unrealistic in real life. It also makes you feel like you have friends who love to spend time with you and also this super cute my melody backpack, which could never happen for real.
They keep you creative. Plenty of times during childhood I’ve felt like I’ve been forced to fit into a box, but with endless possibilities, there’s no box to fit in, your imagination can go wild. Games like Minecraft and Happy Home Designer give you the freedom to make things how you want (with limited supplies of course) even if they’re super weird and time-consuming.
An honourable mention would also be Persona 5. Yes there is a story and Morgana constantly makes you sleep, but there are small sections between palaces where you can just go out and increase social ranks (AKA go on a date with Ryuji, let a girl dream) and just do random semi-open world things like go fishing (Because every game needs fishing, apparently).
The Wandering NPCs 