Do you have a best friend who is nothing like you? Under most circumstances, you should not be in one another’s company at all, but here you are rawdogging life to the fullest without fear.

One of you is into sunshine and rainbows and fruity sleepytime teas while the other loves to pile on loads of goth make-up and rock out to My Chemical Romance. Polar opposites, and despite all that, destiny has brought you together. Whenever I think of this dynamic, I cannot help but conjure up thoughts of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal.

Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing Are Kindred Spirits

This comparison isn’t a coincidence either, and came into being when both games launched on the same day - March 20th - way back in ye olde 2020 as the world entered its first COVID-19 lockdown. Doom Eternal was originally meant to launch the year prior, but a last-minute delay for additional polish put it right alongside the cosy life sim. And the rest is history. Well, it would have been if fans hadn’t taken it in their stride.

I love to imagine that Doom Slayer embraces his feminine side whenever he hangs out with Isabelle, while the business-savvy dog uses this to let out her pent-up aggression.

On the surface, the games couldn’t be more different. One is the newest entry in a cosy life sim where your entire objective is to move to an island paradise and build a new life. It involved paying off a nefarious tanuki and doing some manual labour, but otherwise, you’ll struggle to find a more relaxing game out there. The other is a new entry for a shooter we adore for its extreme violence, heavy metal, and absolute excess of style.

But as gamers, we love to have varied tastes, and I remember countless people that were looking forward to both games ahead of their arrival in 2020, while I double-fisted them as best I could ahead of embargo when code landed in my inbox. It was a lonely time for the human race, but at least there were plenty of incredible games coming our way to make up for it.

Isabelle And The Doom Slayer Are A Match Made In Hell

There is one fan-made video featuring Doom Slayer and Isabelle that never leaves my mind. It begins with the muscular slayer of monsters throwing the adorable dog up in the air until a horde of demons begins to surround them. The slayer looks towards Isabelle as he speaks a single word: “Rip…?” and, without missing a beat, Isabelle finishes his sentence with “... and tear” right as Mick Gordon’s iconic score kicks in. Our girl is thrown into the air one final time while the slayer pulls out a shotgun and prepares for battle. Cue the duo slaughtering demons galore.

There are so many cute details here, like the accurate sound effects, Isabelle standing to attention just before the slaughter begins, or both of them feeling so delightfully accurate in their characterisations.

Back when the shared release date first became apparent, it didn’t take long at all for both fandoms to band together and celebrate these two games that millions were looking forward to. I love that, despite the volatile culture war that often brews in the background, that such different games are able to bring communities together and result in such excessive creativity. You couldn’t move for creative art, video tributes, or memes of Doom Slayer and Isabelle, with the crossover becoming so commonplace that it even bled into marketing.

During an interview with IGN following the release of both games, New Horizons director Aya Kyogoku commented on the unorthodox synergy: "I definitely do notice and have noticed that there’s a lot of Doom and Animal Crossing collaboration art and illustrations that are being posted, and as I look through them I’m in awe of how much creativity our fans have," Kyogoku said.

Producer Hisashi Nogami added: “So Animal Crossing and Doom — obviously the game genres are completely different. We definitely do have something in common, and that is that they’re both video games, and come from that same subculture.”

Doom: The Dark Ages is right around the corner as well, but unfortunately there is no Animal Crossing title to go alongside it this time around. As far as we know…

Nogami is right, and how video games are able to bridge communities across genres easier than film or television, partially due to their interactivity and attraction to creatives who want to put as much into these experiences as they get out of them. At the time, we also didn’t have anything better to do, being locked inside and all. But the dissonance of a shooter all about slaughtering demons across a destroyed version of our planet and a lush escape to an island paradise scratched a particular part of our brains that to this day has its charm.

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DOOM: The Dark Ages

FPS Systems 3.5/5 8.3/10 Released May 15, 2025 ESRB m Developer(s) id Software Publisher(s) Bethesda Softworks
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