This Animal Crossing: New Horizons preload guide will talk you through when you can preload the game, and when it’ll unlock on your Nintendo Switch so you can finally get playing.
We’re just over a week away from the day that Nintendo fans the world over have been waiting for for over half a decade. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is coming to Nintendo Switch on March 20, and that means players will have a fresh island to develop, villagers to befriend, and a house to expand.
Preloading Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The good news is that you can begin preloading Animal Crossing: New Horizons right now. All you need to do is pre-order and fully pay for the game from the Nintendo Switch eShop.
Once you’ve done this, the game will begin preloading onto your system. You’ll need to make sure you’ve got a permanent internet connection, of course, but if you’ve already accessed the Nintendo eShop, this shouldn’t be an issue for you.
The progress of preloading Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be shown on your home screen by a little bar filling up in front of the tile for the game.
It’s worth noting here that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will take up roughly 6.2 GB of space on your Switch’s internal storage, so make sure you’ve freed up enough room.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Unlock Times
Just because you’ve got the game preloaded, doesn’t mean you can just start playing it whenever you want. You’ll need to wait for the unlock time to hit before it’ll be playable. We’ve listed all Animal Crossing New Horizons preload times below.
- Eastern Time – 12:01am March 20
- Pacific Time – 9:01pm March 19
- Hawaii – 6:01pm March 19
- UK – 11:01pm March 19
- CET – 12:01am March 20
That’s all you need to know regarding Animal Crossing: New Horizons preload and unlock times. You can search for Twinfinite or have a browse through more of our coverage on the game below.
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