Animal Crossing, A New Horizon?
Words by Amy Louise
Earlier this year, I attempted to articulate exactly why I felt so disappointed in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but ultimately scrapped the article because of how difficult it was to convey my disappointment in words. Originally released on March 20th, 2020, the long-overdue title was the 5th game in the main series, and thanks to a sudden universal desire for escapism and everybody gaining a lot of free time (I wonder why), it sold over 31.8 million units by the end of 2020, beating The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to become the most popular Switch game ever.
I've always been a big fan of the series, having played every title since the release of Animal Crossing: Wild World in 2005. Originally drawn towards the simple, relaxed gameplay, quirky characters and customisation elements, I appreciated how your town was something that would evolve gradually, with daily logins encouraged in order to get the best out of the world and its inhabitants.
When New Horizons was first released, it introduced a variety of new elements that had previously never been seen amongst the titles in the main series, namely advanced construction and customisation, as well as a new DIY mechanic. No longer were players bound by randomised maps created in the opening moments of the game, rather, we could now finally sculpt every inch of our islands, adding waterfalls, cliffs and paths wherever we see fit. Of course, there were limitations, however for the first time ever, players were handed the reins to create more than they ever could have possibly achieved in previous titles. This coupled with the new ability to finally place furniture items outside, as well as an expanded custom design catalog, has resulted in incredible displays of creativity as players consistently push the game mechanics to their limits to create the islands of their dreams.
Alongside enhanced customisation, New Horizons also introduced a DIY mechanic. While furniture items could still be bought in-game from the ever-present line of Nook retail facilities, players are now able to effectively eschew these figurative shackles of capitalism in favour of collecting the required materials and fully decking their island out in DIY furniture. However, this DIY element was ultimately revealed to have a catch. Recipes are given out at random, either via floating balloons that must be shot down, daily messages in a bottle, or your villagers, who would offer a random DIY recipe three times a day, resulting in a game of chance, particularly for players that didn’t eagerly trawl Nookazon or other online trading forums five times a day.
Initially, this DIY element was a welcomed factor. However, as the months went on, significant downsides started to become apparent. Firstly, it came at the cost of what was once an extensive item catalog. Much loved furniture sets were now gone. What remained to be purchased from the in-game shop were a minute selection of furniture and miscellaneous items, with the players expected to pick up the slack by crafting the necessary objects that they want. This would have been a sustainable solution in-line with the game’s new island aesthetic, were it not for the fact the the random nature of the DIY recipes meant that it could be literal months before you get the exact recipe you want, unless you spend hours time-travelling (Animal Crossing-player speak for changing your console's clock to skip through days) or have an abundance of friends who also play the game and happen to have a spare recipe.
This issue was exemplified by the fact that certain recipes were only available during certain times of the year. The random nature in which the recipes would be released, along with the limited timeframe for availability meant that there was a high-possibility that you would never receive the DIY recipes that you are looking for, unless you played for hours on end. Animal Crossing fans quickly discovered this to their despair within the first few weeks of the game's release, when the limited Cherry Blossom season DIY release coincided with the game's answer to Easter; Bunny Day, which came with its own over-abundance of egg-themed DIY recipes. The chances of collecting all the cherry blossom-themed DIYs, never mind the exact ones you wanted, were suddenly minuscule, and the two-week period quickly passed with many players unlocking only a few recipes, if any at all. This issue was not just limited to the Cherry Blossom Season DIYs. Other in-game seasonal events passed as the year went on, each with their own selection of themed-DIYs to collect and similarly low chance of actually receiving them.
For me personally, I realised I had lost a lot of the joy I originally found in the series' many titles. Rather than popping in every few days or weeks whenever I saw fit, I now needed to hype myself up to play the game. Rather than setting aside 20 minutes to wander around my town, I would sit debating whether I should time-travel through the last month I've missed in a vain attempt to catch up. I was not excited by the prospect of new seasonal DIYs because my prevailing thought was, “well, I probably won't get them anyway”. In a sense, for me anyway, the DIY mechanic had transformed Animal Crossing into a gacha game of sorts. You would log on with the hopes of receiving something cool, to instead be given a DIY recipe for a pile of logs that you have already received 5 times, with no added value or worthwhile reason for receiving a duplicate. In order to maximise your chances of receiving the exact DIY recipe you want, you would have needed to log into the game a minimum three times a day to catch every opportunity for a villager to gift you a recipe, and if you truly wanted to maximise your chances, you really should sit on the game for hours on end, waiting for balloons to pass that you can shoot down.
An easy answer to this predicament is to just not care about what DIY recipes you do or don't have. However, as I mentioned previously, the DIY element was introduced to Animal Crossing at the sacrifice of its item catalog, meaning that if you were missing DIY recipes, some of which were only available for a limited-amount of time, then you could be missing a significant chunk of items that you may otherwise use to decorate your house or island, dampening your creative freedom. For a game supposedly against playing and grinding for long periods of time, it seemed hellbent to force you to do so.
Which brings us to November 2021, just over 18 months after the game’s initial release. Following a huge decline in player numbers and interest, Nintendo released the last major free update to the game, along with paid DLC Happy Home Paradise. I along with many other players trudged back to the game with eager eyes to find it transformed, and most importantly, finally complete. It’s as if it was the game that was supposed to release in March 2020 all along, and maybe thanks to the pandemic, it was. Aside from the arrival of well-loved fan favourite NPCs like peaceful coffee-brewing pigeon Brewster, former town mayor/surrogate grandfather Tortimer and sweet but aggressive sailor Kapp’n, the game also introduced new mystery islands and a massively expanded item catalog of a staggering 9000 new items, among many other things. The DIY recipes are still a random roulette, but new seasonal mystery islands with guaranteed recipes lets you play catch up for any you may have missed. Even if you don’t get the one DIY recipe you want, it doesn’t really matter, because the expanded catalog effectively makes the world yours to shape regardless.
Nintendo has always remained very quiet on the exact impact the pandemic has had on workflows and production. It was well-publicised in early 2020 how production of both the Switch and Switch Lite had to briefly pause in Japan, China and Vietnam, however that quickly resumed as the year went on. Announcements were made as to potential delays regarding DLC content for Nintendo titles, but the exact titles were left up to speculation. It’s highly likely that the impact of the pandemic hit the production of New Horizons harder than we realise, with the intended seasonal updates and content drip-feed initially planned by Nintendo ultimately getting shelved as the pandemic continued to wage its war across the world.
However, I’m not sitting in Nintendo’s Kyoto office, privy to all discussions, so this is all just speculation. All I can examine is what’s in front of me and in my opinion, it’s pretty good. I’m once again hooked on New Horizons, comfortable in the knowledge that I can pick up and play as I please, much in the same way I treated 2013’s New Leaf, which I continued to play until 2018. The villagers feel fresher, the new Island Plaza run by hippy Harv allows you to visit many Special NPC’s whenever you want, rather than waiting them to visit you by chance, and the (albeit paid) DLC, Happy Home Paradise, adds a new dimension and purpose to your daily tasks, ultimately unlocking features that many older players could have only dreamed of in previous games. The New Horizons of March 2020 felt like a step backwards, whereas New Horizons 2.0 feels like a natural progression to the series, encompassing features developed in side games like the mobile Pocket Camp, 2015’s Happy Home Designer, requests from players as well as a generous load of throwbacks.
Even if it’s 18 months on, we’re finally getting to play what feels like the full, completed version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, even if it’s come a little late. The game was a surprise pandemic hit, and while many adopters abandoned it as restrictions began to lift, I’m glad it’s been giving a new lease of life as we enter our 4th wave of the pandemic in Ireland. Was it right for Nintendo to effectively release 40% of a game in March 2020? Or to hide some of the best new features behind paid DLC? Good question, and technically the answer is a simple no. However, I somehow still clocked three hundred hours pre-update, so I think I can spare a couple of more.
