Written By Cali Alvarez
At around 10pm on Wednesday, November 3rd, the long-anticipated Animal Crossing New Horizons 2.0 update was dropped out of the blue, releasing two days ahead of the date given by Nintendo back in October. Fans of the game have been eagerly awaiting the huge new content launch, so this was a chaotic and fun surprise for all.
This peaceful and customizable life simulation game skyrocketed to popularity all around the world back in 2020 and has grown quite the community of players, old and new, ever since. In recent months, however, after lots of fishing and crafting and house decorating, many players had been feeling burnt-out and bored with the seemingly-abandoned game.
After a disappointing Nintendo Direct a few months ago, fans weren’t really holding out hope for the game to be expanded or improved any more. In light of this, it was a pleasant and intriguing statement when Nintendo announced that there would be a special Nintendo Direct coming out in October (NME.com) that would contain info about new updates on the horizon...pun intended. And did they ever deliver.
The ACNH community was absolutely floored on October 15th when the twenty-minute-plus Nintendo Direct video revealed countless new and free updates to the already-beloved game, including: the return of Brewster, a fan-favorite character, and his cozy cafe; the ability to farm crops and cook food; hundreds of new furniture and decor items; new design capabilities; and so, so much more.
This final major free update was supposed to be released on November 5th alongside Animal Crossing’s latest paid DLC, “Happy Home Paradise.” This roughly-$25 add-on is a digital expansion to the ACNH game, allowing players to journey to a new archipelago where they have the opportunity to design vacation homes for their favorite villagers and earn special items to bring back to their home islands. This DLC was especially loved by fans of the game who greatly enjoy the design element of the base game.
With the growing boredom in the ACNH community, this surprise drop of the huge update was exactly the “Christmas morning” energy everyone needed. Even though Nintendo has pretty much confirmed this will be the last big update for ACNH and the game won’t be actively supported with added content for much longer (Polygon.com), this jam-packed update should give players lots of fun things to do for many island days to come.
Do you play Animal Crossing? Have you updated yours yet? Comment below your favorite element so far!
Happy playing and enjoy your island life!
Sources:
https://www.polygon.com/22757427/animal-crossing-new-horizons-last-free-major-update
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/animal-crossing-new-horizons-will-have-more-new-content-to-come-confirms-bowser-2973052