SweetieGames

I’ve discussed before how I was one of the many people addicted to Animal Crossing New Horizons back in 2020. I had finished my uni work, unable to see my friends in real life and unable to go anywhere, so we’d hang out and check each other’s progress on our islands. I hadn’t returned to the world of Animal Crossing since Wild World on the DS, so it was really fun to see how much the game had changed and have control over where to put things and who gets to live on my island.

After achieving a 5 star island and finding the villagers I wanted, I found there wasn’t much left for me to do in New Horizons. Where I had previously been logging in every day, I now went for months without checking in on my island. I know I’m not the only one either; many of my friends lost interest once their islands were perfected. The dialogue from the villagers is pretty repetitive, so the only thing you can do is wipe your island and start again, which I didn’t want to do. There were a couple of things added, like cooking and the ability to swim in the ocean and collect new creatures, but these weren’t enough to pique my interest in the game.

However, this month saw the release of an update to New Horizons, adding things like a hotel resort, new craft goals and other much needed upgrades to make the game more comfortable to play, as well as exclusive tools and updates for the Switch 2 version of the game. I got curious and had a look at what this had to offer, and I’m now the most invested I’ve been in Animal Crossing in a long time.

I started seeing online that many other gamers feel the same way; Animal Crossing seems to be having a resurgence now that the game is finally updated. I had Resetti clean up my island as my flowers had overgrown, and I spend my days decorating hotel rooms with no monetary or material limit. I’ve had a great time making all kinds of themed rooms and thinking about what I can do with my island. The update to crafting allows you to craft in bulk too, using items either in your pockets or in your home storage to make it easier to access. It’s a shame they didn’t take this a step further and allow you to print off Nook Miles Tickets in bulk.

Being able to decorate the Hotel rooms each day has been fun, but something I haven’t been enjoying as much is the huge amount of random villagers parading around my island. I will put my hands up and say that I tried very hard to get cute villagers and villagers that I wanted, and my island is pastel themed with pink and purple paths everywhere and themed areas. Now, I have up to 8(!!) random villagers wandering around all day, and more often than not they’re not fitting in with the vibe of my island. I’ve tried to make the hotel outfit fit in at least, but I didn’t spend months trying to get villagers off my island to have them turn up again in my hotel rooms and wander around like they own the place. They’re even turning up on my island without a place to stay, and the game tries to offer them a VIP room! I don’t want you here!

Speaking of VIP rooms, I do think that they are a little pointless. I have to redecorate them every time I put a guest in them, and I could only see it making sense if the VIP guests were able to be invited to your island permanently, the way campsite visitors are.

I can’t speak for the Switch 2 exclusive aspects of the update as I don’t own the console (yet!) but I think there are some teething problems with tools such as the megaphone.

Overall, I’m enjoying this Animal Crossing renaissance. It’s been nice to enjoy it outside of a global pandemic and have something fresh and new to do. I’m not sure if the game will receive any more updates, but I am intrigued to see what’s next for the franchise.