Nintendo must now do better with the successor

Animal Crossing: New Horizons slammed into a unicorn pinata like an eight-year-old’s baseball bat. As much as Switch players were excited about the sweet innards, there’s still a lot of potential for Nintendo to make the next game better. We summarize what Nintendo should now consider when developing the successor.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – a hit that Nintendo has to surpass

The Animal Crossing community hasn’t heard from Nintendo since fall 2021. Since the last major update, including DLC, it has simply become quiet about the surprise hit from 2020.

The fact that Nintendo has most likely been working on the successor to Animal Crossing: New Horizons since then is a no-brainer for many fans of the series. Especially with a view to the sales figures: over 42.21 million times the simulation game sold.

This puts it silver on the podium of the best-selling Switch games, ranking behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (53.79 million units sold) and ahead of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (31.09 million units sold). (Source: Nintendo)

As well as the game has sold, it still exists some criticisms, that Nintendo should take into account for the successor, if the community – and us – has anything to do with it.

Residents with more personality

The animals you live with in your neighborhood make a big difference in Animal Crossing. Not for nothing did the game’s heyday come with horrendously high prices for popular residents, for which in-game currency, but in part also real money was requested.

Unfortunately, the residents in Animal Crossing: New Horizons are more accessories than creatures that feel real and approachable. While players in previous installments of the series could chat with them for hours without the dialogue being repeated quickly, many in New Horizons quickly got tired of it the same nonsense to listen to the animals.

It doesn’t help in the least that there aren’t any really mean or snooty residents anymore – or just some with personality. Legendary sentences from games like Wild World are still circulating online today, in which the residents are particularly mean to the player or express deep thoughts about life and being. There is something like that from New Horizons hardly any more.

No wonder that players now only pay attention to the appearance of their residents – the little animals have little more to offer. Nintendo should definitely fix that.

The island problem

A major criticism of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is that you can only have one island per console. Every other Switch game allows at least one save per user. For New Horizons, however, you need the same a second switch, if you want to start a second island.

In previous installments of the series, you needed a second copy of the game to start a new island. Not ideal either, but paying 40 euros again is still better than paying over 300 euros for a second island.

More fun with friends

In the pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a savior in need. At least in Animal Crossing you could see friends you couldn’t meet physically anymore and they – well, what actually, show his island?

Unfortunately, while New Horizons offers online multiplayer, there really isn’t much to do. The community got creative themselves and spent hours preparing game shows and slalom races for others.

That’s cool, but it would be even nicer if Nintendo made a few of its own build in activities would. In the 3DS game Animal Crossing: New Leaf, for example, friends could meet up and travel together to a special island where there are rare animals to catch and various mini-games to play.

The fact that the Switch successor had nothing more to offer is one size Disappointment, which will hopefully be made up for in the next spin-off.

More content

In general, New Horizons was missing a lot from the start that was included in other games from the start. services like that Furniture remodeling as well as the cafe, were added to the game with the last update – over a year and a half after the game’s release. In New Leaf, these were included from the start.

Other things, such as further upgrades for Nook’s shop, including the luxury shop, were left out. In the next game, these things are welcome to be included again at the beginning of the game. Then the game doesn’t feel that way at the beginning either unfinished on – at least for long-term fans.

You can see what the huge update 2.0 brought to the game in the following video:

When is the next Animal Crossing coming out?

It will probably be a few more years before a new Animal Crossing is released. After all, the release gap between New Leaf and New Horizons was almost eight years. According to this calculation, we have to wait until 2028. But it’s also conceivable that Nintendo will build on New Horizons if Nintendo’s next console is just an improved version of the console.

Because so much is clear: a new Animal Crossing will be only with the next console appear. It remains to be seen when this will happen.

The next Switch console is rumored to be out this year. This is what the supposed leaks say:

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