Animal Crossing’s Direct gives us a better look at the island and Tom Nook’s thriving home loan business

Nintendo has shown off a variety of new features coming to their island-living simulator and it’s looking like a right relaxing kind of time.

I’ve made it fairly obvious that while I enjoy the ultra-violence and gore of video games, the games that have really captured and hold my heart to this day are those that let me chill out. The relaxing games that want nothing more than to give you good vibes, bru. Animal Crossing is one such game and after putting plenty of hours into New Leaf on the 3DS, I’m exceptionally excited for the latest entry in the franchise, New Horizons. Following the latest Nintendo Direct, which was held yesterday and focused exclusively on Animal Crossing: New Horizons, my excitement is even higher because it really looks like the perfect realisation of what building a town for animals should be. Here’s a look at some of the bigger features confirmed in the Direct:

First and foremost, Nintendo is doubling down on the community aspect of Animal Crossing as Nook Link has been announced as a downloadable app, available on all smartphone appstores for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, and will serve as an Animal Crossing dedicated social media platform. Players will be able to chat to each other through instant messaging or voice chat to set up some rather juicy trade deals, I imagine. New Horizons will also be blessed with a bunch of free content updates post-launch which will last for roughly a year. What these content drops will feature is still a mystery, but any reason to keep coming back to the island is good enough for me.

It was also confirmed that visitors to your islanders won’t be able to destroy any of your island. During multiplayer, which will take the form of friendly players being able to visit your island and help you out with whatever tasks need doing, your friends will be banned from using axes and shovels so they won’t decimate every square inch of your new home. Of course, that raises the question of what exactly you’re meant to do within multiplayer but apparently the restriction on tools is lifted if you’re considered “best friends” but how such a metric is gauged has yet to be mentioned.

One slightly worrying thing is that New Horizons will not support cloud saves which seems bizarre for a game designed to be played over long periods of time. While Nintendo has stated that measures have been put in place to ensure save data can be regained should something happen to your Switch, it’s strange how cloud saving is still not being implemented. Trust me, I’m as shocked as you are that Nintendo is totally biffing some kind of online functionality. How out of character for them. 

Last Updated: February 21, 2020