Geek It! Out & About: Animal Crossing: New Horizon event at SeaLife Sydney (2025)

Between April 1 and May 18 (2025), Sydneysiders were given the opportunity to immerse themselves in an exclusive Animal Crossing: New Horizons event at SEA LIFE Sydney. Based on the popular Nintendo game where you can build your island, this was a themed event that gamers should not miss.

With its colourful illustrations and adorable animal characters, you’d think the gaming franchise only appealed to the young demographic whom has the whole world ahead of them. But in fact, this franchise is for all walks of life, and this certainly shows when you see a mixture of young and older fans waiting fervently in line for the event.

Greeting us at the start of the event is none other than our favourite museum curator, Blathers. Of all the characters in the Animal Crossing world, Blathers was THE perfect person to perform this role.

From learning about anemone to fishes, Blathers is always there to give us the low-down about marine life and its creatures in great detail. If I was a curious-minded youngster who is keen about the ocean, I’d definitely be absorbed by this unique experience.

As we continue to shuffle along, fans were able to take photo-ops of of their beloved villagers and stamp their way through at different checkpoints of the event.

We even had to join a search party to find Gullivers who has gone missing again!

To complete the experience, we had a meet and greet opportunity with Isabelle. Ah, what a great way to fulfill our inner child’s dream …!

And of course, we can’t forget souvenirs! For hardcore fans of the franchise, this was a great way to get their hands on exclusive merch. From AC lego sets to character plushies, it was impossible to leave the store without buying something!

Our overall real thoughts on the event?

While we unfortunately did not collect any physical form of fishes or fossils for our personal collection, we expected more magic from the event.

Maybe more interaction from the other villagers? Maybe more immersive interactive workshop stops or activities to proceed to the next stage? We felt the overall event was hastily put together, and we can’t help feeling there was a major missed opportunity for the event to be something more.

Other than that, the overall event was satisfactory in delivering Animal Crossing‘s adventurous spirit and cute charm to its adoring fans. It is very rare for Australians to experience something like this — hopefully we will see more themed gaming events in the near future!

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