The Animal Crossing series has been a Nintendo fan-favorite since its first release on Nintendo 64 in 2001. The series always generates a lot of excitement when a new entry is announced. The most recent game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, proved to be especially exciting. The game launched on Nintendo Switch in March 2020. At the time, provided a much-needed escape to an island paradise and a distraction for the initial COVID-19 lockdowns. However, New Horizons' shortcoming are becoming clearer in its second year, and if they aren't addressed, Nintendo risks losing the game's huge player base.
After all, the premise of each Animal Crossing game is largely the same, and New Horizons is no exception. The player controls their character while navigating a new location, befriending NPCs and collecting furniture to create a relaxing escapist paradise. However, these games tend to get little attention once the hype surround their releases has died down; New Horizons is facing the same fate for a number of reasons.
Lack of Event Variety
Nintendo has been trying to keep players interested in New Horizons by releasing almost monthly updates and special items. But apart from the fresh aesthetics they provide, the updates have added little to the core game. Starting in March 2021, players were able to purchase special Mario items in celebration of Super Mario's 35th anniversary, as well as limited-time items for Saint Patrick's Day. These were mostly furniture and clothing that was relatively cheap to obtain. The most expensive item was 12,000 Bells -- which isn't much for players who have been saving up since last March. These updates were whimsical, but didn't add much staying power.
Just like last year (and in previous games), Bunny Day was New Horizons' Easter event where players collected various eggs hidden around the island and swapped them for items. But while the event was different than last year's widely criticized one, its search-and-swap nature event was near-identical to February's Festivale. This lack of variety leaves little to look forward to with these events, as the mechanics behind them remain largely unchanged and repetitive.
Small Playable Areas
Nintendo's brilliant idea to introduce terraforming allows players to put their stamp on their island's environment, making each one feel unique. Purchasing Nook Miles Tickets also allows players hop to other islands to meet new NPCs and catch different creatures. The question, though, is if Bethesda can fit an entire Skyrim map inside a Switch cartridge, why does New Horizons limit players to a small main island to customize and even smaller temporary islands to explore?
Animal Crossing has always prided itself on being a minimalistic escapist title, but there is a massive opportunity to allow for more player exploration. If Nintendo wants to strictly stick to the island paradise theme, they should expand current features within the game, including providing more variety to Dodo Airline's tours. While some may fear that this would push New Horizons towards becoming grinding and objective-based game rather than one focused on creativity and relaxation, Nintendo needs to add some new elements to the game to keep players invested.
The Small Catchable Creatures List
A huge part of any Animal Crossing game is catching creatures, whether that's chasing around a common yellow butterfly or staying up late to track down a snapping turtle. However, despite the fact that the game has the potential for an ever-changing lineup of creatures, there has been little change in what is available in the game as a whole. Players who have been active since New Horizons' release have likely caught just about everything there is to catch by now.
If Nintendo wants to stop players from getting bored of one of the game's central mechanics, it should give players something to do outside of donating or displaying their catches. Who, for example, wouldn't want to try and tame a spider to follow them around the island? There are so many creative possibilities. The game's July 2020 update allowed players to swim and dive in the ocean to catch sea creatures that previously were not part of the game. However, since then no new critters have been added.
The Time Travel Controversy
Time travel has long been a controversial topic among Animal Crossing players. Changing the system's calendar and clock to skip to certain days or events is considered the game's most popular cheat. Even though New Horizons' has an increased reliance on Internet connectivity, skipping time is still possible, as the game runs on the console's internal clock. Nintendo decreased time-traveling's appeal a bit by adding most events through seasonal updates rather than having them in the games from the beginning, but players will still use it to skip some of the game's tedious elements.
However, once a full year has gone by, players likely have little else to do besides return to the current time and play the game normally while waiting on new content updates. Non-time travelers argue that this ruins the real-time aspect of the game. And while it may be fun to roll snowmen in July, experiencing everything about the game at once can lead to burnout.
Ultimately, Animal Crossing's dilemma post-pandemic boils down to the fact that there will be a huge drop in the amount of time people spend indoors. Players will finally be able to connect in person instead of over Animal Crossing. And while being able to visit family and friends face-to-face again is wonderful, so much of New Horizons' appeal came from its ability to connect people in ways that were not otherwise possible at the time. Without that, it will be hard to tempt players to continue picking up the game -- especially if it continues to only receive basic updates and uninspired events. Nintendo has to chance to keep Animal Crossing's audience interested, but right now, it is not doing enough to maintain the momentum the game initially enjoyed.