Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo’s most unassuming series. It’s quaint and relaxing, with no clear-cut goals, and it doesn’t feature the company’s most iconic characters like Mario or Link. But it has also become one of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, growing from a Japan-only release on the N64 to a tentpole title gracing most Nintendo platforms and even expanding to smartphones. New Horizons for the Switch is the biggest entry to date, one that promises to expand with regular, seasonal updates. You can keep track of everything you need to know about the game with the stories below.
Mar 16, 2020
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a chill, charming life sim that puts you in control
Animal Crossing has always been a slow burn. It’s not the kind of game you marathon for hours at a time. Instead, its joys reveal themselves over days, weeks, and months. It’s a quirk of the premise: Animal Crossing is a laid-back life simulator that takes place in real time, forcing you to wait for things to happen. This also makes it an acquired taste.
Read Article >Even by these standards, the latest entry in the series — New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch — starts out slowly. It has an entirely new premise: instead of being the sole human moving into a town full of animals, you start out on a deserted island and create a community from scratch. Initially, it can feel a little too empty, especially for series veterans who are more accustomed to bustling little villages.
Feb 20, 2020
11 things we learned about Animal Crossing: New Horizons from today’s Nintendo Direct
The vibe around Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a lot less secretive now. This morning, Nintendo showed off a lengthy presentation that provided plenty of details about the latest title in its adorable life sim series, which is making its debut on the Switch on March 20th. That includes everything from the structure of the game to the multiplayer aspect and your new virtual smartphone. There was a lot packed into the 25-minute-long presentation. But if you weren’t able to catch the whole thing, here are the highlights.
Read Article >The Animal Crossing series isn’t exactly known for its bustling metropolises, but the island in New Horizons will be quiet even by Animal Crossing standards — at least initially. When you first boot up the game, you and two other residents will set up camp on a previously deserted island. Aside from nature and your tents, the only other facilities initially will be the airport where you can access multiplayer features, and Tom Nook’s facility where you buy and sell items, as well as craft new ones.
Feb 20, 2020
Animal Crossing: New Horizons: hands-on with Nintendo’s adorable Switch life sim
From the beginning, Animal Crossing: New Horizons feels different. Historically, Nintendo’s life-sim series almost always starts the same: plunking your human character down into a quaint town populated by animals. New Horizons, instead, begins with an information desk. Your character is peppered with questions by adorable raccoons Timmy and Tommy Nook, asking you all kinds of questions about something called a “Nook Getaway Package.” You’ll be asked where you live, whether you want to visit the northern or southern hemisphere, and to present your passport photo (a cleverly disguised character creator). You even get to pick from a series of four randomly generated island layouts. Just two minutes in, the game already feels much more involved than its predecessors.
Read Article >New Horizons isn’t just the series’s long-awaited debut on the Switch; it’s also what looks like the biggest departure for Animal Crossing to date. By shifting the setting to a near-deserted island, the developers at Nintendo have found a premise that lets them play with a well-worn formula while still keeping what works. I had a chance to check this out for myself earlier this week when I played the first 45 minutes or so of New Horizons. And while that’s not nearly enough time to judge a game of this scope, the latest Animal Crossing is at least off to a promising start.
