Animal Crossing fans received a long-awaited update on the now-delayed upcoming Switch title as well as a title reveal, alongside some first-look gameplay at Nintendo’s E3 2019 Direct.
The amazing first trailer revealed the game will be called Animal Crossing: New Horizons and was packed with much-requested features such as bigger multiplayer, outdoor furniture placement, and of course, paths.
However, there are still a few quintessential Animal Crossing features, as well as requested new ones, that we didn’t catch a glimpse of. Here are seven things we still want to see from Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The Museum or an Alternative
Collecting bugs, fish, fossils, and deep sea creatures is a process at the heart of an Animal Crossing game, yet so far we’ve seen no signs of the museum making a return to the next entry. Many players enjoy Animal Crossing’s collection elements including acquiring furniture and items for the museum.
The museum has been featured in every mainline Animal Crossing game except Animal Forest, which was only released in Japan for N64 and featured a ‘faraway museum’ which players could send their fossils to for identification.
The return of the museum could also bring about some simple changes to how fossils are assessed. For example, instead of having to bring every fossil to blathers for assessment, already donated fossils could be recognized and sold or kept right after digging them up. This means the player would only be required to visit the museum if they dig up a new find, saving them a bit of time and effort.
Seasonal Events and Holidays
Animal Crossing has always been a game which links to the real world date and seasons, so it’s no surprise the game has often featured seasonal events such as Halloween and a very similar holiday to Christmas called Toy Day.
New Horizons will surely bring this essential part of Animal Crossing back, as even the spinoff game Pocket Camp had a strong Toy Day element, but we have yet to see any indication of these events.
Shops and More
Following the New Horizons trailer and Nintendo Treehouse gameplay, we have yet to see a town or city area.
Some Animal Crossing games such as City Folk and New Leaf had sections of the map dedicated to shops and services. This element was convenient, as players could find most of the shops in the game in one central location without said buildings interrupting the village layout or design.
It makes sense that this idea will return in New Horizons, and we can most likely assume this area will be accessed by plane, as it is clear players can travel elsewhere by the map shown in gameplay footage.
The Return of Old Friends
You may have been curious as to the whereabouts of Isabelle; worry no longer, as it has been confirmed that she will make a return in New Horizons. After all, it wouldn’t be an Animal Crossing game without her.
Isabelle won hearts as a new character in Animal Crossing New Leaf and then again last year in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Isabelle’s appearance in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is said to be based on your progression within the game.
That said, we are still looking for the likes of musician K.K Slider, museum Blathers, Reese & Cyrus, the Able sisters, and more of our favorite previous residents. We can assume that at least some of these characters will make a return in New Horizons, possibly based on in-game progress like Isabelle, or they could just be located elsewhere.
Ordinances
In New Leaf, ordinances were a convenient way to prioritize what was important in your town while fulfilling the role of mayor. Ordinances could be changed for a steep 20,000 bells after reaching a 100% approval rating as mayor, and only one could be in place at once.
The beautiful town ordinance was a fan-favorite, one which helped keep your town beautiful by increasing the rarity of weeds, removing cockroaches from homes, making villagers plant and water flowers more, stopping flowers from wilting, and removing the negative environmental effects of time travel.
The bell bloom/wealthy town ordinance helps with a few different things regarding wealth. The ordinance increases Re-Tails high price items from one to two a day, increases buy and sell prices, and more medals are gained in island tours.
Ordinances are particularly important for those with different play schedules, i.e. those who work early or late. The early bird ordinance makes shops open and villagers wake up three hours earlier, as well as making the villagers go to bed three hours earlier whereas the nightlife ordinance does the opposite. This is a must-have for regular Animal Crossing players with different routines.
After the news that New Horizons will also cater to players in the Southern Hemisphere, so we can hope this means Nintendo want to make the game as accessible as possible to players all over the world and to those with different routines as they did with ordinances in New Leaf.
New Horizons could include previous ordinances as well as add new ones, although ordinances will likely be implemented in a different way as it appears players in New Horizons no longer act as mayor.
More Villager Archetypes
Despite having current eight different categories of villagers, after the kind of long-term slow-burn gameplay that Animal Crossing is known for, villagers begin to act and sound a bit samey. After you’ve seen one of each type of villager consistently you’ve pretty much seen them all.
Hopefully, new villagers with new types will make an appearance in New Horizons. It’s important that we see new villager personalities and phrases in particular, as these traits make the villagers feel more real and the gameplay feel less monotonous.
The language used by animals in Animal Crossing, animalese, has received some audible changes and sounds less high pitched. Still, this doesn’t mean we can say for sure that there will be a big change in conversation with the animals or with the types themselves.
Mini-Games
Tortimer island could be accessed by taking Kapp’n’s boat from your village in New Leaf, and as well as an abundance of rare bugs and fish, the island also had mini-games in the form of island tours.
The bug catching, fishing, digging, balloon bursting, and fruit collecting games could be completed for tokens used at the island shop, a place to purchase rarer items such as the wetsuit, accessories, and decorative items.
These features were a fun way to wind down when taking a break from managing your town, and a similar element would give us more to do around the island and overall would work well in New Horizons.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons looks really promising so far, and the sad news of a delay from 2019 to March 20 next year shows Nintendo is committed to making sure the game releases as a finished product which hopefully includes many of these improvements and returning features.
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