Animal Crossing New Horizons has gone 2 months without an update and we’re going into July with not only no new features or events but nothing new at

[Etown20]

The head scratcher though is that Brewster dialogue was found (in the actual game and not coding) back when the game first launched, but was quickly patched out soon after.

File:NH Removed Brewster Dialogue.jpg

Lazy villager dialogue involving Brewster, which was removed in version 1.2.0 of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

nookipedia.com

That has to imply they either jumped the gun with some of the stuff and had to take it out or they decided to just leave the game in the state it is in because of pandemic, that it went way over their predicted sale numbers, Splatoon 3 development, or all of the above.

I'm really not expecting anything big for the August update or forward, but you still have to wonder why they even bothered to take out dialogue.

I'm not sure we'll ever find out the full backstory, but I tend to think the game (and Nintendo in general) have been more affected by the pandemic than they have publicly disclosed or has been reported.

I think there is a general perception that one day workers packed up their things at the office and started working from home the next day without missing a beat, but I get the sense Nintendo doesn't work that way. It seems possible (or probable) to me that they may be months behind their original schedule with both Animal Crossing and several other games.

 

[Dracule]

I pretty much have low to zero expectations of Nintendo at this point. Unless they’re planning to do some huge drop like the Welcome Amiibo update on New Leaf, I wouldn’t expect anything from those grubby cash grabbers at Nintendo. Even if they ever do plan an actual substantial drop of a ton of new UX, NPCs and furniture series, that won’t happen until 3-5 years from now when New Horizons hype is totally dead and they feel pressure to promote the game again.

Again and again, Nintendo has been promising “more, just wait a little longer.” And again and again, they don’t deliver. They give like less than a megabyte’s worth of an update. And the next week, we hear the same promise. “Nintendo’s working on something! They said so!” Yeah, well I’m not holding my breath. All Nintendo does is make false promises and try to build up their own hype only as long as it correlates with $$$.

Animal Crossing is such an iconic game, so I don’t know why Nintendo disrespects the fandom by giving peasize updates once a month, to outright skipping entire months, for over a year. They can’t seem to get it together. I mean, Switch is five damn years old, and they didn’t even make any hardware and software updates to the new one they just announced. They drummed up hype for the past year, implying that the new Switch would have at least 4K or some sick new hardware, but all they did was make their 5-year old toy white and slightly bigger. Oh, and instead of trying to make the Switch an even more powerful portable console, they added the Ethernet port at the back so it’s actually less portable . Nintendo to me, it seems, is either lazy AF or doesn’t care at all about what they’re doing. Their work lately has been so low effort that they are crossing into scammer territory. It’s as if all their updates and consols are Being produced by the power of a single person, when they are a huge international corporation with a ton of manpower and the ability to produce so much more.

Didn’t mean to turn this into a rant about the Switch

Honestly, I was so disappointed about the new Switch after researching it more. My husband wanted it, but I convinced him the price wasn’t worth it for what was actually provided. I definitely feel you there about the Switch and am glad you mentioned something.

I’m already used to being sad about Animal Crossing NH and it’s lack of attention given by Nintendo, so I’ve been numb about the game since E3 despite holding a tiny bit of hope for a grand update. In the mean time, I’ve decided to revamp my island a little and focus on doing interior builds for my character houses, and this is how I can keep playing the game when sometimes I feel like I don’t want to because of everything. Still a fun game, but very incomplete to me. :/

Also, your post made me think of this meme I saw on Instagram today, LOL:

 

[RollingAntony]

Cool, the game doesn't need more updates. It's as complete as any other game. (There are more updates coming in order to activate events, but the content they'll bring is going to be ignored by people because it's not [insert thing they personally want])

Fans hyping themselves up over rumours, code and unreasonable/"reasonable" expecations is not Nintendo's problem, but people will never accept that (the Switch OLED is an example of how people build this headcanon that Nintendo hinted at a "Pro" and then got so disappointed/mad that they didn't release a "Pro").

There's also a little thing known as a global pandemic (and the upcoming Olympics is only going to make it worse for Japan), but developers should be inmune to it or something, according to some people.

 

[*~ Croissant ~*]

Cool, the game doesn't need more updates. It's as complete as any other game. (There are more updates coming in order to activate events, but the content they'll bring is going to be ignored by people because it's not [insert thing they personally want])

Fans hyping themselves up over rumours, code and unreasonable/"reasonable" expecations is not Nintendo's problem, but people will never accept that (the Switch OLED is an example of how people build this headcanon that Nintendo hinted at a "Pro" and then got so disappointed/mad that they didn't release a "Pro").

There's also a little thing known as a global pandemic (and the upcoming Olympics is only going to make it worse for Japan), but developers should be inmune to it or something, according to some people.

I‘m jealous of your optimistic outlook on New Horizons actually hahaha. While I agree with the logic of what you said, it’s allowed for us as consumers to be upset that a product we bought is not getting the attention that was promised by the corporation who sold it to us. Obvi, I’m not naive to think that complaining on the message boards is going to have any affect on what said corporation does, but I do feel like complaining about it. Also, as far as the pandemic goes, developing can be very much done remotely, and I still went to my damn classes and went to my damn job throughout the pandemic, so I don’t feel very much sympathetic towards those who still had jobs and didn’t work hard at them. It also is hard to ignore the fact that the pandemic very much helped Nintendo with its hype for New Horizons, since they released it at the start of quarantine.

Honestly, I was so disappointed about the new Switch after researching it more. My husband wanted it, but I convinced him the price wasn’t worth it for what was actually provided. I definitely feel you there about the Switch and am glad you mentioned something.

I’m already used to being sad about Animal Crossing NH and it’s lack of attention given by Nintendo, so I’ve been numb about the game since E3 despite holding a tiny bit of hope for a grand update. In the mean time, I’ve decided to revamp my island a little and focus on doing interior builds for my character houses, and this is how I can keep playing the game when sometimes I feel like I don’t want to because of everything. Still a fun game, but very incomplete to me. :/

It truly is incomplete IMO, just from simply the amount of content there is. Very few furniture options for example. Less than any previous game.
The best thing to do at this point is just try to have zero expectations so that there is zero disappointment. Then I can start enjoying the game again

 

[-Blue-]

Just commenting on the first part @kazujina since I agree with that. I worked all throughout the pandemic and had to go to my place where I worked every day and often double shifts to make up for the difference that the pandemic caused. With my job, there really was no remote to it, so I just had to deal with the situation at hand and go in regardless.

Which really isn't the point, but Nintendo did still have a different lead working diligently to bring out the Smash roster for the second fighter pass when this was going on. Yes Sakurai did comment how covid and working at home/remote proved challenging for them, but they still managed and were able to meet deadlines at a reasonable time.

I just don't see the same level of dedication being handled by the AC team and they hit gold when they brought this out during the pandemic. Those sales were doubled if not tripled because of covid and stay at home laws. I'm sure if covid had not happened the numbers would be a lot different. Not a little. A lot.

I'm not stupid, naive, or childish, and I was fine with the lack of quality updates (imo) due to covid, but after a while it seemed like they weren't doing as much as they could had. Flipping a switch to bring back fireworks and maybe a handful of new items isn't going to have that many coming back.

 

[Moritz]

Cool, the game doesn't need more updates. It's as complete as any other game. (There are more updates coming in order to activate events, but the content they'll bring is going to be ignored by people because it's not [insert thing they personally want])

Fans hyping themselves up over rumours, code and unreasonable/"reasonable" expecations is not Nintendo's problem, but people will never accept that (the Switch OLED is an example of how people build this headcanon that Nintendo hinted at a "Pro" and then got so disappointed/mad that they didn't release a "Pro").

There's also a little thing known as a global pandemic (and the upcoming Olympics is only going to make it worse for Japan), but developers should be inmune to it or something, according to some people.

I completely agree that it doesn't NEED more updates as its already the best in the series by a large margin.
But that doesn't mean they can't improve it.

I would love to see more updates come our way.

 

[Dunquixote]

Just commenting on the first part @kazujina since I agree with that. I worked all throughout the pandemic and had to go to my place where I worked every day and often double shifts to make up for the difference that the pandemic caused. With my job, there really was no remote to it, so I just had to deal with the situation at hand and go in regardless.

Which really isn't the point, but Nintendo did still have a different lead working diligently to bring out the Smash roster for the second fighter pass when this was going on. Yes Sakurai did comment how covid and working at home/remote proved challenging for them, but they still managed and were able to meet deadlines at a reasonable time.

I just don't see the same level of dedication being handled by the AC team and they hit gold when they brought this out during the pandemic. Those sales were doubled if not tripled because of covid and stay at home laws. I'm sure if covid had not happened the numbers would be a lot different. Not a little. A lot.

I'm not stupid, naive, or childish, and I was fine with the lack of quality updates (imo) due to covid, but after a while it seemed like they weren't doing as much as they could had. Flipping a switch to bring back fireworks and maybe a handful of new items isn't going to have that many coming back.

Just want to add that I never liked the Fireworks festival from NL, so yeah, that is definitely not going to make me grab my switch and go in the game. New clothes honestly isn’t going to cut it for me either. As much as I appreciate the big clothing choices now (since I used to not care about them at all), clothes still don’t excite me. Paid dlc is definitely not going to bring me back or want to get the next AC if they start making new dlc regularly but don’t do anything significant in whatever free updates are left. I don’t ask for my whole wish list to be delivered. At this point, it is hard to say what will be the one thing that could change my stance on the game and my dissatisfaction with it since the longer this goes on likes this, I feel like even the best update won’t completely make me happy since I am worried they will think that the way they handled NH is acceptable for the next game and people will buy the next one.

 

[Moritz]

it’s allowed for us as consumers to be upset that a product we bought is not getting the attention that was promised by the corporation who sold it to us

This isnt really true though.
They promised updates and they are giving them to us. We know for a fact we are getting an update this month as they need to activate the fireworks.
And all they promised was the holidays and they delivered on those.

Anything beyond that is simply fan speculation and hopes.

They are giving us and have given us exactly what they promised

 

[-Blue-]

This isnt really true though.
They promised updates and they are giving them to us. We know for a fact we are getting an update this month as they need to activate the fireworks.
And all they promised was the holidays and they delivered on those.

Anything beyond that is simply fan speculation and hopes.

They are giving us and have given us exactly what they promised

While they didn't promise it, they did take out Brewster dialogue in a post patch early on in the game's life. They also didn't really promise holidays either until almost the day of, so we were left in the dark quite often.

I actually think a good bit of the fans wouldn't be so jaded, disappointed, and or frustrated if they had a bit more transparency. Yeah Nintendo never was one for transparency. But usually their games come hot off the press without the need for the updates, which the NH choose or had to do.

So I think if they would just come out and mention 'Yeah this is it' or 'We do have more stuff to implement' fans would be more accepting of the state.

 

[WaileaNoRei]

Just want to comment a bit that though it is a little off topic I think it is unfair to imply that the employees of Nintendo don’t work hard or should have been put at risk during the pandemic in order to produce a video game to a perceived better standard. Be as unhappy with the game as you like but I do not feel like it is fair to attack the regular, non- decision making Nintendo employees. No one should have needed to risk their like during the pandemic, just to put food on the table and I am sorry to those who did but don’t like this idea that the solution is that more people should have been endangered. I also don’t know of any concrete information accusing Nintendo employees of being lazy/ non hardworking (?)

Nintendo is a Japanese company, not an American one, and my understanding is that while many American companies had existing frameworks and infrastructure for working from home, japan does not, because it does not fit into their business culture, which is different and distinct from America. The fact that the work in theory can be done from home, does not mean they were prepared to make that shift quickly and seamlessly.

not that I even know if this had any impact on the game, but while I think it is fine to criticize Nintendo the corporation, I think attacking the work ethic of it’s employees (especially based only on speculation) is uncalled for.

maybe everyone just got too fired up and don’t really mean it that way, and I am not trying to attack anyone, or say anyone is a bad person or anything. I just think it is important to keep in mind that the people who actually make the game are just working people like us, trying their best.

 

[Moritz]

While they didn't promise it, they did take out Brewster dialogue in a post patch early on in the game's life. They also didn't really promise holidays either until almost the day of, so we were left in the dark quite often.

I actually think a good bit of the fans wouldn't be so jaded, disappointed, and or frustrated if they had a bit more transparency. Yeah Nintendo never was one for transparency. But usually their games come hot off the press without the need for the updates, which the NH choose or had to do.

So I think if they would just come out and mention 'Yeah this is it' or 'We do have more stuff to implement' fans would be more accepting of the state.

They promised the holidays by showing the holiday characters when they said there would be updates. Every character they showed is in the game now.

As for the dialogue, it was just dialogue.
It was never a promise of something. It was just villagers talking. And at the time brewster was in a way in the code. That got removed but is back now.

I dont blame them for not saying what's coming. If brewster really was meant to come earlier and they said that at the time... well they clearly changed their plans. Imagine the uproar

 

[-Blue-]

Yeah I never said any of them should risk their lives to make a game. I was frustrated with our own government during the pandemic and how literally they tried to deem everything essential so nothing had to shut down. Like Gamestop was trying to say it was essential. That was gross.

It's a bad scene no matter how you look at it because some small shop's/upstart companies trying to plant their roots couldn't sustain themselves during the lockdown and they are now dead. Even some of the more well known places were starting to feel the affects.

I used Smash simply as an example, because both of them are from the same company. I never implied that they were lazy. I just liked that during the situation Sakurai still made time to make streams and the such. He gave a face to Nintendo and I really like the passion he brought. Having a face and voice makes them a lot more relatable.

@Moritz Wait, the Brewster dialogue is back again?

 

[Moritz]

@Moritz Wait, the Brewster dialogue is back again?

Ah no sorry, I meant that he's in the code now to be in the museum. I dont want to take it as a guarantee that he's coming to new horizons. But since he was in the code, left the code, and now is back with even more code, it looks to me that they had to change plans from an earlier update, to one coming around now. It looks to me like they never stopped working on him, just that they had to reprioritise

 

[-Blue-]

Maybe he had to be ripped out of the coding? Like when exactly did the dialogue get taken out? Was it during the time when Redd and the Art section of the museum came back? Maybe there was something screwing up the code that didn't let the art and Brewster section co-exist. Hypothetically of course, since I don't know why they did it or if the stuff is coming back.

 

[Moritz]

Maybe he had to be ripped out of the coding? Like when exactly did the dialogue get taken out? Was it during the time when Redd and the Art section of the museum came back? Maybe there was something screwing up the code that didn't let the art and Brewster section co-exist. Hypothetically of course, since I don't know why they did it or if the stuff is coming back.

I'm not sure when the dialogue left as I never personally got to see it.
But I do also think its suspicious that the game si currently bugged so that any villager who should be in the museum cant be found. I speculate they're at the non existent brewsters

 

[RollingAntony]

I‘m jealous of your optimistic outlook on New Horizons actually hahaha. While I agree with the logic of what you said, it’s allowed for us as consumers to be upset that a product we bought is not getting the attention that was promised by the corporation who sold it to us. Obvi, I’m not naive to think that complaining on the message boards is going to have any affect on what said corporation does, but I do feel like complaining about it. Also, as far as the pandemic goes, developing can be very much done remotely, and I still went to my damn classes and went to my damn job throughout the pandemic, so I don’t feel very much sympathetic towards those who still had jobs and didn’t work hard at them. It also is hard to ignore the fact that the pandemic very much helped Nintendo with its hype for New Horizons, since they released it at the start of quarantine.




It truly is incomplete IMO, just from simply the amount of content there is. Very few furniture options for example. Less than any previous game.
The best thing to do at this point is just try to have zero expectations so that there is zero disappointment. Then I can start enjoying the game again

I never said people weren't allowed to complain/be upset. It would be much better if the criticism was fair and constructive, but sadly, most of the times it's not. (Not specifically, my comment is in general).

It's cool that you went to classes and your job during the pandemic, I'm also still working from home. I don't agree that you can safely say that the developers didn't work hard at the game but hey, that's your own opinion based on what little we know about this. It also doesn't matter that the quarantine helped Nintendo (hint, it helped the whole industry on the sales-side of the business but it was a detriment to the whole industry on the research and development side, based on the information given by the companies, the developers and the analysts of the industry).

By the way, I have been comparing numbers from NL to NH since a long time ago, you seem to have the numbers for previous games based on the comment that this game has less furniture. Can you please share the numbers for previous games? I had access to the numbers of NL and NH due to the databases that exist like moridb and Nook's Plaza, but wasn't even able to find for other games and I'd appreciate to have some info for older titles!

I personally think that having 72 items less than NL at the same time is not worth of being called "very few furniture options" but it seems we both have very different expectations.

___
In general, I think nobody knows how people are dealing with a pandemic. Work culture is different from country to country and every industry has its own shortcomings/advantages when faced with something like this.

I work with insurance and it has been mostly smooth-sailing because this kind of work has the ability to shed papers and bureaucracy and replace it with Internet meetings and going once a week to the office to print only necessary files. Me being able to do that and keep my job doesn't mean I can apply the same logic to all industries out there. Due to how this business goes, deadlines are always mostly the same, things are mostly going as "expected" and the like- the transition to a covid-world hasn't hit as hard (and that's me downplaying the greater effect of the pandemic on the insurance business and how some of the insured are assigned to companies). Thanks to analysts and other developers speaking about it (and maybe thinking about it a little), you can see that game development is a completely different thing. For example, plans for updates may have been scrapped due to the need to move to a different game that needs to be released and decisions had to be taken.

Comparing the work of Sakurai (who is not "Nintendo"), who is notorious for being a workaholic that takes some less than ideal measures to do his job to other developers is also not very useful. While he is fine with overworking himself to achieve his vision, that doesn't mean everyone should be doing the same- and if we go even further, not even "working like Sakurai" is exempt from criticism, people go crazy with the "Everyone is here" moment and how some should have been applied to New Horizons but forget that in order to do that, they had to cut out a lot features that were on previous games and you have the usual vocal minority saying he's lazy and harassing him on social media. He has, for better or worse, stayed online through that- but not everyone can do that.

I'm glad some people have had the ability to work well during a global catastrophe and I'm specially grateful I've been able to keep my job and be on a good position. However, I'm fully on board of being sympathetic to almost everyone (billionaires and the like not included haha ) because I know it hasn't been easy and everyone fights their own demons. Millions of people turned to New Horizons as an escape during the pandemic and may have put much more hours than ever before on an Animal Crossing game and I firmly believe that's a key factor on how people dissect this game. The world hasn't been the same since 2020, and, as many analysts agree, I don't think we'll stop seeing the effects of the pandemic on the video game industry until like 2022/2023.

 

[Dunquixote]

I never said people weren't allowed to complain/be upset. It would be much better if the criticism was fair and constructive, but sadly, most of the times it's not. (Not specifically, my comment is in general).

It's cool that you went to classes and your job during the pandemic, I'm also still working from home. I don't agree that you can safely say that the developers didn't work hard at the game but hey, that's your own opinion based on what little we know about this. It also doesn't matter that the quarantine helped Nintendo (hint, it helped the whole industry on the sales-side of the business but it was a detriment to the whole industry on the research and development side, based on the information given by the companies, the developers and the analysts of the industry).

By the way, I have been comparing numbers from NL to NH since a long time ago, you seem to have the numbers for previous games based on the comment that this game has less furniture. Can you please share the numbers for previous games? I had access to the numbers of NL and NH due to the databases that exist like moridb and Nook's Plaza, but wasn't even able to find for other games and I'd appreciate to have some info for older titles!

I personally think that having 72 items less than NL at the same time is not worth of being called "very few furniture options" but it seems we both have very different expectations.

___
In general, I think nobody knows how people are dealing with a pandemic. Work culture is different from country to country and every industry has its own shortcomings/advantages when faced with something like this.

I work with insurance and it has been mostly smooth-sailing because this kind of work has the ability to shed papers and bureaucracy and replace it with Internet meetings and going once a week to the office to print only necessary files. Me being able to do that and keep my job doesn't mean I can apply the same logic to all industries out there. Due to how this business goes, deadlines are always mostly the same, things are mostly going as "expected" and the like- the transition to a covid-world hasn't hit as hard (and that's me downplaying the greater effect of the pandemic on the insurance business and how some of the insured are assigned to companies). Thanks to analysts and other developers speaking about it (and maybe thinking about it a little), you can see that game development is a completely different thing. For example, plans for updates may have been scrapped due to the need to move to a different game that needs to be released and decisions had to be taken.

Comparing the work of Sakurai (who is not "Nintendo"), who is notorious for being a workaholic that takes some less than ideal measures to do his job to other developers is also not very useful. While he is fine with overworking himself to achieve his vision, that doesn't mean everyone should be doing the same- and if we go even further, not even "working like Sakurai" is exempt from criticism, people go crazy with the "Everyone is here" moment and how some should have been applied to New Horizons but forget that in order to do that, they had to cut out a lot features that were on previous games and you have the usual vocal minority saying he's lazy and harassing him on social media. He has, for better or worse, stayed online through that- but not everyone can do that.

I'm glad some people have had the ability to work well during a global catastrophe and I'm specially grateful I've been able to keep my job and be on a good position. However, I'm fully on board of being sympathetic to almost everyone (billionaires and the like not included haha ) because I know it hasn't been easy and everyone fights their own demons. Millions of people turned to New Horizons as an escape during the pandemic and may have put much more hours than ever before on an Animal Crossing game and I firmly believe that's a key factor on how people dissect this game. The world hasn't been the same since 2020, and, as many analysts agree, I don't think we'll stop seeing the effects of the pandemic on the video game industry until like 2022/2023.

I agree with you that I think complaints should be constructive, but at this point I can’t really blame even the non-constructive ones unless they are just copy and pasted from another thread or something.

About what you said about the furniture. Numbers don’t really mean anything to me. I personally feel like as much furniture as we have, they aren’t very appealing to me and a lot are just miscellaneous. We get a lot of clothes, door decorations from the updates. I see nothing wrong with any of the comments here; I feel like most of us have been constructive.

 

[Rosch]

Well, we're getting closer and closer to August. The update is just around the corner. Will it be big? Or just another light switch that enables previous events? We'll see in a few weeks.

 

[-Blue-]

Well, we're getting closer and closer to August. The update is just around the corner. Will it be big? Or just another light switch that enables previous events? We'll see in a few weeks.

Whatever is the case, I always enjoy your posts about the updates. You're like an undercover sleuth. Cracking the equations to the world's greatest mysteries. Or you know, explaining the datamines to us and the such.

 

[Rosch]

Whatever is the case, I always enjoy your posts about the updates. You're like an undercover sleuth. Cracking the equations to the world's greatest mysteries. Or you know, explaining the datamines to us and the such.

Thank you! I try to relay what the datamine contains because not everyone knows what's happening behind the scenes. Most people only get to see the new items but not really what's in the code. It also helps avoid misinformation (that most AC "influencers" exaggerate for clickbait).