One of the joys of the Animal Crossing series is booting up the game each day to see something new. Be it a new neighbor moving in, a renovation to your house being complete, or some seasonal event going on, Nintendo has baked the mundanity of everyday life into a cute package. You want to see these things because they are so different, random, and enjoyable.
For New Horizons, the series’ first Switch entry, things are a little different. While everything described above definitely happens in the game, the majority of those extra events aren’t actually on game cartridges. No, for the first time in the series’ history, players need to have access to the internet to get the full Animal Crossing experience.
Why was this change enacted, though? Does Nintendo want to avoid spoilers? Is it trying to stop players from cheating? We’ll likely never know the real reason, but we can speculate a little on the why and see the upsides – and downsides – to this new approach for Animal Crossing.
The Good
The biggest positive is what I just mentioned above: spoilers. Everyone that knows anything about Animal Crossing was obviously expecting holidays to happen, but Nintendo locking that content out from the start meant players weren’t able to time travel and do everything at once. For those unfamiliar, Animal Crossing works by using your console’s system clock, so days progress in real-time. By switching your clock, you can actually send the game forward or backward in time.
It would be impossible to prevent players from manipulating their system settings, but there is one method Nintendo could implement to prevent spoilers: mandatory patches. If you want to experience these holidays and play online with your friends, you’re going to have to update your game. No amount of future skipping is going to make “Bunny Day” appear before its official release (thank god).
Another positive to this approach is that Nintendo can specifically curate events to be more defined. In the past, seasonal events in Animal Crossing were fairly basic either due to memory limitations or time constraints. In the rush to get New Leaf localized for worldwide release all at once, the events became a bit streamlined and mostly played out the same.
With the patch approach, these different events can have more planning put into them and even bring completely unique assets into the fold. New Horizons introduces crafting to the series, so that is obviously going to be a facet of every holiday. It would be silly to develop all of those items at once and potentially delay bug fixing, especially since the core game doesn’t revolve around the ability to make a Christmas wreath in July.
The Not So Good
As for downsides, the biggest one has to do with preservation. While people with digital copies will have acquired them through the internet (and thus have the connection required to continuously update it), players opting for physical copies may not be so lucky. If you have a crappy internet connection or live in a place where you can’t readily access the net, then I’ve got bad news for you.
Due to the dependence on the internet this time, physical copies are going to be pretty worthless once Nintendo shuts down its servers. That likely isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but Nintendo’s titles have proved to be popular for decades. People are still discovering things about the GameCube original thanks to hackers and modders becoming more acquainted with the GameCube hardware. That isn’t going to be the case with New Horizons.
Once Nintendo ceases updates and its servers are shuttered, your physical copy is going to become a basic one. If you happened to get all of the updates, then you better hope your Switch doesn’t die. With no way to transfer game data for New Horizons -thanks to some odd limitations on the console-, those holidays and special items are simply going to vanish into the night.
A more minor downside is still related to internet connections. While you don’t need to be online to play Animal Crossing, not having ready access to download any patches means you could miss out on holidays that were present in previous iterations. If your ISP is down for a week or more (something that could become a reality during this pandemic), you can kiss that fun little event goodbye.
It’s a very bizarre approach for a Nintendo release. The company has typically resisted the urge to adopt more modern/scummy practices of shipping what people call “half-finished” titles, but the weird stance on “cheating” it holds for New Horizons seemingly forced its hand. It couldn’t have players learning all of the secrets at once, so it was better to strip them out of the game and periodically release them over time…except that doesn’t make sense.
The Case for An Animal Crossing: New Horizons Complete Edition
For the average user, a lot of this isn’t going to matter. Internet infrastructure has come a long way in the last decade and most people are able to access the internet at some point. The updates for New Horizons have also been relatively small, which helps people with spotty or lackluster connections. It still doesn’t erase the fact that New Horizons will eventually become lost to time.
As crappy as it would be, I do hope Nintendo releases some “Ultimate Edition” once it stops updating the title. It would be nice to have a copy on my shelf for the future if I ever feel the need to return to this particular entry. It would also give Nintendo more money, which I’m sure the company would love.
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