Ability to Choose Island Map and Change Its Landscape
In previous Animal Crossing games, you’d be given a town map with features like rivers and cliffs in random spots. Now in New Horizons, at the beginning of the game, you’ll be able to choose between several island maps to ensure you’re happy with its layout.
What’s even more exciting is that even if you aren’t completely satisfied with the layout, you’ll be able to acquire a construction permit later in the game to change the landscape. For the first time ever, you can add and remove land and water to make it look exactly how you want it to.
Use Magic Wand to Save Outfits Presets
In the direct, we saw a glimpse of the special character Celeste, whose role in the past has been related to stargazing and museum exhibits. In New Horizons, it seems like her role is to give the player an item called a magic wand.
It looks like you’ll be able to save outfits as presets and change between them quickly. This is a fantastic new feature if you have many favorite outfits that you want to wear without going back to your closet and finding all of the separate pieces.
Drag and Drop Interior Decorating
Decorating the inside of your home looks easier than ever. We saw a glimpse of how it will work, which is as simple as dragging and dropping furniture in a specific decorating mode instead of positioning each item individually, which used to take forever.
It was also mentioned that furniture will be customizable right from Resident Services, so if you wanted to change the color and wood type of your bed, it will only take a few seconds to do. In New Horizons, there is easy customization for anything you can think of.
Scan QR Patterns from Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Happy Home Designer
Prior to the direct, we didn’t know how we would be able to share custom patterns to use for clothing items. Not only did we learn we can share them via QR codes on the Nintendo Switch Online app, but QR codes from the 3DS games New Leaf and Happy Home Designer will work as well.
There are thousands of fantastic patterns out there from years of playing those two Animal Crossing games, so there will be plenty of customization options to choose from at the very beginning of your island life.
Ability to Invite New Residents to Your Island
In New Horizons, you’ll start off with just two animal residents on your island. Over time, more might decide to move into your new Animal Crossing home.
For the first time, under special circumstances, you will be able to actually invite an animal who is visiting the campsite to come live on your island. This new feature is excellent for if you have a favorite animal who you want to move in.
New Special Character Names and Roles
Some of the new special characters in New Horizons were teased on merchandise and the game’s box art, but in the direct we got our first look at the new faces and their names.
Orville and Wilbur will run Dodo airlines, which is absolutely brilliant because they share the names of the Wright Brothers who are famous for being the first to fly a motorized airplane.
We also saw a new character named Daisy Mae, a young pig who will sell turnips, C.J., the otter who will run the fishing tourneys, and Flick, the lizard who will host the bug-off contests.
Display Fossils, Bugs, and Fish Outside
In addition to filling the museum (which, must I say, looks absolutely gorgeous) with collected items, we now have the ability to display our fossils, bugs, and fish outside.
In a few scenes in the direct, we saw the player placing these types of items for display. Some of them look especially nice, such as butterflies in jars and dinosaur fossils next to buildings.
Invite Anyone to Your Island, Even if you Aren’t Friends
We already knew that we could invite friends to our island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but in the direct we also learned that you can use a special Dodo code to invite people who aren’t on your Nintendo Switch friend list.
This is a great feature for if you want to get together with somebody once or don’t want to add them as a friend. What’s even better is that you can designate visitors to be “Friends” or “Best Friends,” and only best friends will be able to use tools like shovels and axes to make big changes to your island.
Use Ladders to Climb Cliffs
The ability to add staircases and ramps to reach the upper parts of the cliffs is already an amazing feature, but there’s also a small detail you may have missed about what to do if you haven’t build one of those yet.
We saw the ability to use a ladder to quickly climb a cliff at any location. This is great for if you want to get to a spot right away without placing a staircase or ramp there.
Pick Location for Almost Every Building
For items that aren’t able to be crafted, you’ll need to buy them. And to buy them, you’ll need shops. We got our first look at shops like Able Sister and Nook’s Cranny, and the best part is that we can finally decide where to place these buildings.
This is also true for resident houses. When an animal wants to move in, you can help him or her decide where the tent (and eventually house) should be placed. The layout of your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, down to every last building, is truly up to you.
One Extra Detail
Twitter users have spotted a random gravestone on an island in Animal Crossing New Horizons and we have no idea who’s under there.
We’ll just assume that this is where you’ll end up if you refuse to pay Tom Nook his bells…
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