Animal Crossing, like Kirby, has come back when it seems like the world needs it most.
In 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons released on the Nintendo Switch. The game instantly became a smash hit, providing a much-needed place to safely gather with friends amidst the global shutdown of the covid-19 pandemic. In the almost six years since, Nintendo has sporadically kept up with the game, adding seasonal items and content, including the Happy Home Paradise DLC and the massive 2.0 content update that Nintendo claimed, at the time, would be the game’s last. But the arrival of the Switch 2 heralds a new update for the game that has fans itching for more opportunities to play with friends, create their dream homes, or return to cozy island life. For some, the series has been a constant part of their lives. “My entire internet experience as a child was just the Animal Crossing forums,” Soleil tells The Verge.
Soleil is a cozy game YouTube creator and diehard Animal Crossing fan who has been playing the series since its early days on the GameCube. “When I started playing, my neighbor, who I had a crush on, was playing,” she tells The Verge. She has all the games in the series, including Japanese versions that she can only play with the help of Google Translate, and has clocked over 4,000 hours in New Horizons specifically. “It just became more and more of a cute escape,” she said.
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With this third update known as “3.0”, Soleil is hoping for things that make the game as robust as its predecessors. Though Soleil says New Horizons is the best game of the bunch, she always felt like it was released unfinished. “Over the years, [Nintendo] introduced patches which have improved gameplay quite a bit, but it still misses some of the mark of what Animal Crossing, up until now, has been,” she said. The new update is two-fold and may bring the game more in line with her initial expectations.
On January 15th, Nintendo will launch a paid Switch 2 update that offers exclusive features like mouse controls and 12-player online co-op. The 3.0 update, which launched a bit early, is free for both Switch and Switch 2 players offering several quality of life enhancements and new features. Players will finally be able to create multiple items at once, the new Slumber Islands offer yet another place to show off player decoration skills, and, perhaps most importantly, there’s now strafing. (Hell yeah!)
But one of the things Soleil is really looking for improvement on is the villagers.ons According to Soleil and others, New Horizon villagers are more passive than their counterparts from previous games. “One of the most common complaints over the years among casual and hardcore players is that the villagers are just kind of lifeless,” she said. New Horizons’ 2.0 update addressed some of those issues, bringing villagers closer to the prickly, opinionated residents from earlier games. “I hope that in 3.0 that they’ve tweaked [that] some more,” Soleil said. Better, ruder villagers aren’t her only wish. “I’m really hoping that they add more dialogue […] more shop upgrades, and the ability to redesign our buildings like we could in New Leaf.“
But beyond wishes and wants, it’s the little things in 3.0 that excite Soleil the most. “The fairy in a bottle item. Oh my gosh, I literally screamed,” she said. “I loved the Majora’s Mask item in every game, I’m very excited that it’s back.”
Fernando, another YouTube gaming creator, is also excited by the prospect of The Legend of Zelda themed items in Animal Crossing. Like Soleil, Fernando has been playing the game since the GameCube era, but says that “I really developed a huge appreciation for [the game] like everybody else during the pandemic.” For Fernando, Animal Crossing brought him to his own new horizons. “I grew up playing mostly shooter games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, that sort of stuff,” he said. “Animal Crossing brought me over to another side of gaming that I wasn’t very familiar with, and I found out how much I really like this type of game.”
Though he has over 500 hours in the game, he didn’t keep up with it over the years. The DLC, Happy Home Paradise, wasn’t for him and after sporadic check-ins he fell off the game entirely until the 3.0 announcement trailer. “The thing that’s really bringing me back is the collaborations with Zelda,” he said.
But it’s another kind of collaboration that’s wooing Fernando back as, before the 3.0 update, New Horizons did not allow players to decorate in multiplayer mode. “That’s the thing that I am most excited about,” he said. “Being able to decorate with my wife, and go through our ideal house is going to be just a lot of fun.”
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Since it’s his favorite game series, Fernando plans to Zelda-ify both his island and his house. In addition to adding Zelda-themed items, in 3.0 scanning either the Tulin or Mineru Amiibo from Tears of the Kingdom will allow them to visit your island or even move in. Fernando said he plans to add Tulin to his village but is mildly disappointed that Nintendo didn’t go for the more obvious Zelda-themed villager. “It’s a huge missed opportunity not adding a villager based on Epona.”
Like Soleil, Fernando felt New Horizons’ villagers were blander than their predecessors. But similarly he has nevertheless grown attached to them. That attachment is causing both Fernando and Soleil issues as 3.0 forces them to confront the biggest decision an Animal Crossing player can make: what to do about their island. With all the fancy new decoration items, AC’s robust community of custom pattern makers, and the sheer wealth of customization options available, it can be tempting to start over from scratch. But with that reset, everything goes away — including the villagers that have come to call a player’s island home.
“Clay, specifically, he’s like an OG and I love him,” Fernando said. “So I don’t want to see him go.” Soleil is no less fond of her own villagers, but has taken a different perspective. “On this island, I’m a god, I can do whatever I want at any time,” she said. “I can just get them back.”
For both players, Animal Crossing has been an escape over the years, especially during the pandemic and with 3.0’s release imminent, it seems poised to offer gentle distraction in a time of crisis again. “It’s comfort food for me,” Fernando said. “Especially with everything happening in [the US] specifically.”
For Soleil though, Animal Crossing is something she reaches for in personal times of stress. “With personal crises, I’m more willing to delve into Animal Crossing,” she said. “But when it comes to things that are harming my community, my friends, I’m much more willing to ignore video games for that.”
