Approaching the One Year Anniversary, what will you think if there aren't any big updates coming?

[Rosch]

People keep expecting because the game is missing a lot of things which are supposed to be included in the base game to begin with. One should not ignore that fact. I'm not saying that everything has to be included, but at least the game should have characters like Brewster and Kapp'n who are series staples and most demanded by fans. Of course one can't help but be disappointed by their absence.

Also, the game has been in development before the pandemic started and one cannot keep using that as an excuse.

As pointed out several times, game code had indicated the presence of unreleased content. Let people be optimistic because there's something to support it.

Yes, I am excited for March. Should I get disappointed because of my expectations, that's my own fault. It doesn't end in March though. That's just the start of the second year.

 

[-Blue-]

People keep expecting because the game is missing a lot of things which are supposed to be included in the base game to begin with. One should not ignore that fact. I'm not saying that everything has to be included, but at least the game should have characters like Brewster and Kapp'n who are series staples and most demanded by fans. Of course one can't help but be disappointed by their absence.

I agree, they shouldn't sleep on the fact that the base game is still incomplete. I honestly thought we would had most of the basic stuff by this point. The fact that we don't shocked me, but now I'm at the point where I just don't expect things to get much better content wise any time soon. It sucks to have that mentality, because I don't want the game or the company to fail.

I will still play the game, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the game is pretty barebone if you take away terraforming and dropping furniture outside. I do like those features and they are awesome, but it can't carry the series for its entire life.

 

[coldpotato]

You may believe me, you may not - I will respect any decision you make. Probably in time you will forget about our discussion - but Brewster will not come back... or maybe we should appreciate Mr Resetti we got recently as figurine? Would you enjoy "happy return" like this one?

I kept saying long time ago, I don't believe it will be an ultimate version of AC ever and my predictions still stand. As they releasing Mario, Zelda and other games again and again, it will be not really good decision to give everything what is the best in NH, because Nintendo will probably release new console in the future and with new console, will release old games, adding some new flavour.

Honestly, I wish you and everyone else, I'm mistaken. I'm player like you are and I would prefer to enjoy this game for many years, I would like to enjoy new updates and I want to playing - but not enjoying to wait for something never comes.

It was confirmed we are getting updates this whole year, and possibly next year as well. Nintendo doesn't often come out with new and fresh ideas for New Horizons updates and for the most part have just been adding in things/NPCs from previous games over time. Why wouldn't they add what's possibly the most requested NPC to New Horizons? People's voices have been loud about Brewster almost everywhere Nintendo posts about animal crossing. I'm not saying just because of that they have to add him, but I do think it has some influence. They also were working on adding him earlier to the game but perhaps something went wrong so they decided to work more on him later. I'm not saying it's guaranteed he will come to the game, but I think there is a high chance he will even if it's later this year. To me saying something like "Brewster will not come back", is too strong of a statement to make without having some sort of evidence.

 

[marea]

That would be fine with me, but i would feel pretty bored if we get half way through this year without any substanional updates. Still, it is waaay too early to tell, and i am feeling kinda optimistic.

 

[RollingAntony]

People keep expecting because the game is missing a lot of things which are supposed to be included in the base game to begin with. One should not ignore that fact. I'm not saying that everything has to be included, but at least the game should have characters like Brewster and Kapp'n who are series staples and most demanded by fans. Of course one can't help but be disappointed by their absence.

Also, the game has been in development before the pandemic started and one cannot keep using that as an excuse.

As pointed out several times, game code had indicated the presence of unreleased content. Let people be optimistic because there's something to support it.

Yes, I am excited for March. Should I get disappointed because of my expectations, that's my own fault. It doesn't end in March though. That's just the start of the second year.

Just a quick question, who decides what is supposed to be included in the base game/what is a "series staple"? Fans? If so, which fans? Older fans? New fans? I mean, internet-wise I agree with you that Brewster (and a café) and minigames are probably the two most requested features but I've also seen fans that don't care about it.

And that only covers Internet land, who knows what other people want and consider.

I agree, they shouldn't sleep on the fact that the base game is still incomplete. I honestly thought we would had most of the basic stuff by this point. The fact that we don't shocked me, but now I'm at the point where I just don't expect things to get much better content wise any time soon. It sucks to have that mentality, because I don't want the game or the company to fail.

I will still play the game, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the game is pretty barebone if you take away terraforming and dropping furniture outside. I do like those features and they are awesome, but it can't carry the series for its entire life.

Another quick question, what is the criteria that makes base NH an incomplete game? Can a game be called "pretty barebone" if it features the highest amount of villagers, flowers, bushes, fossils, clothing, wallpaper, flooring, villager activities, QoL updates over its predecessors like stacking, pocket and storage space? For every less fruit, less NPC, there is a most customization options and most character creation options. If I take away defining features of previous games, can they also be called pretty barebones? If I take away for example Tortimer Island and the Main Street away from NL, or the city from City Folk?

 

[Rosch]

Just a quick question, who decides what is supposed to be included in the base game/what is a "series staple"? Fans? If so, which fans? Older fans? New fans? I mean, internet-wise I agree with you that Brewster (and a café) and minigames are probably the two most requested features but I've also seen fans that don't care about it.

And that only covers Internet land, who knows what other people want and consider.

Who decided what is put into the game, the developers, obviously.

What is a series staple? Characters, mechanics, gameplay, and/or items that have been part of the series since they were first introduced. Brewster has been part of the series since Wild World. And by Kapp'n, I am referring to him. Not the minigames. He's been part of the series since the very beginning.

By 'fans' I am referring to any Animal Crossing enthusiasts/followers/supporters who greatly contribute to the game's popularity and sales, therefore affecting the series' future, which affects the company, which affects the development of the game. Of course I know there are people who don't care about certain things at all. That's how fandom is.

 

[Cosmic-chan]

I doubt there will be some major update we'll get the mario update and thats's that. I'd just be happy that when I buy the Sanrio cards they add all the funitue lol

 

[ForgottenT]

At this point, Im convinced Nintendo doesn’t and probably never did care about New Horizons.

They saw a gap in the market. Fans of the series were baying for another game since New Leaf. It didn’t matter if they released a decent game or not - people would still buy it. NH sailed on the success of NL and it worked.

Now Nintendo has our money in its pockets they have no incentive to make the game better. The free updates were a mask of good faith to keep sales up - empty promises of the game we should have had.

Exactly, a rushed cash grab, and empty promises.
The community aspect is all but gone, the villagers are cardboard stands, they let us decorate everywhere, but got rid of almost all furniture, they gave us terraforming, but then limits us to 8 slopes, and 8 bridges.
And don't even get me started on the limited QR slots, they should really allow us to have more, just put an item for expanded QR slots in the NM shop already!
The only update I cared about were the bush update, but that should have really been in the game from the beginning, there's no excuse for withholding content just to pull it out for PR.
It's clear that once they found out how Pocket Camp can print them money NH became the unwanted step child that they rushed out the door, and only give enough attention as to not get reported to CPS.
You can certainly make a beautiful island, but how interesting is it really to have the same small set of furniture littered everywhere, how many fake restaurants, and cafés do you really want?..
It doesn't even come close to NL as a sim game, and it doesn't even have the catalogue to touch HHD.
Hopefully the second year will have actual content updates, instead of this crap where they just gate "events".
New Leaf were a masterpiece, NH feels like it were just phoned in, maybe covid played some role in it, but even so it doesn't excuse the base game being so lacking.

 

[DrewAC]

IMHO, the only quintessential things an Animal Crossing game needs aren't specific NPCs like Brewster, but the themes of family/friendship, creativity, and collection/achievement. This is what the original "creator" of Animal Crossing has always focused on, and what the producer of AC:NH (who also lead development of New Leaf) has lead her NH team on the basis of. Really, if we take a look at each of those categories, New Horizons makes huge improvements in all three.

There is no way they could have recycled New Leaf in its entirety and called it a day. For one, that's taking a game with a lot of terribly low quality assets, going from a staggering 240p to 720p/1080p. They would have had to literally spend all of development time trying to redesign every single 3D object mesh and texture from the ground up. If they could even achieve that on time, there would be little time to make big changes to gameplay as they have done with New Horizons.

And, honestly, if we ended up only getting New Leaf HD, I would turn it away instantly. Going from Wild World to City Folk, which is where they basically took the same game and only increased graphics with minimal improvements, was very disappointing. They didn't even change the hourly music, so in 2008-2013, we were stuck listening to the same hourly tracks as we were in 2005. Given that New Horizons is the 6th game in the series, it was very vital that they shook up the game in some form, and with things like crafting and terraforming, they certainly did.

You can criticize New Horizons for the content patches as often as you'd like, but truthfully, they released a very solid game on release date, and have only continued to make it better since, for free, with no signs of stopping any time soon. That is extremely rare in this day and age for any game, and their patches to prevent hacks and such really show their commitment to this title. I'd rather not have an AC game where I wait another 8 years with barely any new content drops before the next main series game, and they're doing a great job, as far as I'm concerned.

It's not perfect, no game is, and not even New Leaf was a masterpiece. If you think so, check it out again, and you will instantly be reminded of the many limitations and inconveniences we dealt with in the game. Villagers moving away unexpectedly, new ones moving on top of your town wherever they wanted to, grass decay, tiny inventory, repetitive dialogue, hackers, lack of customization, low quality assets, poor representation of POC, etc. I could keep going, but my point is it is by no means without its downfalls, as much as I still love it.

 

[John Wick]

Ha!

NL didn't lag at all.

I feel like I'm walking in slow motion, through PORRIDGE in NH.

I moved faster in Pokemon Gold on a bike!

 

[Feunard]

I feel very disappointed with the updates we've seen these last months. First of all, we don't have a lot to do compared to New Leaf: villagers cannot come to your house (even if they say they'll do it, I restarted my island two days ago and the first day I get my home, my two villagers told me they'll visit me but it's actually false), you don't have a fun island with mini-games (yes, we can travel to mystery island, but I find them less fun), less places to visit (café, some shops) and of course less furnitures. Remember, first days of the game, we didn't have Redd, diving, dreams, etc etc. But too much is missing for the game to be perfect for me and really fun and interesting. Many have already deserted it.

I just hope the next updates will be better, with the return of at least Brewster, and maybe new fruits (banana, durian...) and more furnitures. Please. Not just based of a theme (for example Mario) but everything we enjoyed during the last opuses (HHD was very very good in term of decoration, I miss it). When I discovered Pocket Camp and saw all these wonderful items... why am I playing New Horizon?

I do hope more updates with more content. Months without any event as we could see last month is so sad. We lost something forever: spirit of Animal Crossing.

I understand your disappointment but I don’t think it’s fair to say that there’s more to do in new leaf compared to new horizons. Don’t get me wrong, I totally respect your opinion, I actually share part of it, but reading your comment has made me realise how different the two games are. It’s true that months without events can be boring but this was the case in new leaf, too! At least in my experience, there is much more to do in new horizons. After I completed my town in new leaf, I wouldn’t play for more than 15 minutes every time I started the game. Plus, villagers‘ dialogue was unbearable to me back then. In New Horizons, even if I only have to dig up fossils and do my daily tasks, I always have to dedicate at least 30-40 minutes of my time to the game. I know it can look like it’s not that much, but that’s a big difference to me, as I feel more engaged in the building and maintaining of my island, while in acnl it felt like a chore to me most of the time. Maybe it’s just me, but mini-games and the café didn’t entertain me that much after a year of playing. I wish Brewster were in acnh but I am happy with how Nintendo has managed the update system. In acnh, it actually feels like you’re starting from scratch, with something new coming every couple of months, building a community. This is, for me, the essence of Animal Crossing New Horizons. Even the comments villagers make about what you’ve doing the day before, which many people complain about, make me feel like every single villager on my island is thankful towards me and recognises my investment into creating a pleasant place to live. New Leaf was more about creating a beautiful town than feeling part of a community, this is what I think after years spent playing the game. I do wish furniture sets were in the game, as well as pocket camp fantastic items, but New Leaf and New Horizons are too different to be compared, in my honest opinion. So we should focus more on the positive aspects of the game and simply enjoy it rather than complaining about it.
That said, who says we can’t have New Horizons plus all of the cool features found in New Leaf, even if the gameplay of the two games are so different? Unfortunately, I can’t answer to this but asking yourself this question is probably what makes you so disappointed with the updates and what misses from acnl. I’ve asked myself that question too, and I am satisfied with the answer I came up with: to give us the feeling of building up a community, bit by bit. The update system makes sense to me because I think it answers to this logic.
Anyway, the experience of playing Animal Crossing games is extremely subjective, so all I’ve said might sound like nonsense to you, which is totally understandable. I’ve loved New Leaf, why would I have kept playing it for more than 3 years if it wasn’t the case? But New Horizons, with all of its flaws, is the perfect game for me. After all, one of the best aspects of the Animal Crossing community is the variety of opinions Animal Crossing players have.

 

[Monokuma73]

The initial data mine did show among other things (that did end up to be true) that there is some kind of plan for a café. Whether it be in the Museum or it's own building. IIRC, v1.7 shows that Katrina may be coming back soon.

Many things has been literally copy / pasted from New Leaf. I can still some "mess" in the game, small bits but it's clearly indicating many things has been not looked at properly.
Data mining is only proving something is in the code, no more, no less. I know this from my experience as well as others. If you will be data miner and if you will dig in code of game I created you will find some things not included in my final release and you could have false impression I will release this in the future, but I won't. I just had some ideas, I thought they may be good, but finally I dropped them and replaced with something else.
Good example of comparing dreams to reality is recent update, where we finally got Resetti... but as figurine. Can anyone say now, we don't have Resetti?

I said on another thread that Brewster and The Roost were specifically mentioned by villagers back in April 2020 with coloured names. I highly doubt Nintendo would let dialogue like that in the game with his name coloured if they weren't planning on adding him at some point. They removed the dialogue thus far, so it's possible they could scrap the ideas for Brewster and The Roost, but I don't think Brewster is 100% ruled out honestly. If anything, there's a higher chance of him or a new pigeon coming back than not.

This does not prove Brewster coming back, I know. These pics could even be fake. But to say he is 100% not coming back is also a little too far-fetched if you ask me. Especially also considering data mines. Things can indeed be scrapped, but at the same time, you can't really ever prove that Brewster is coming back because we will never know until enough time passes.

If it's 2022 with no Brewster, then yes the chance begins to get slimmer. But it's 2021 with many missing NPCs, so we don't really know if they're continuing to add them throughout this year or forgetting about them completely just yet...

I'm no NH enthusiast, but no one can really assume things yet. That goes both ways.

As someone mentioned this before it was a dialogue related to visiting / hosting. I don't have a screenshots, because back then I considered this as irrelevant, however dialogues not proving anything.

I'm interested in your confidence that the game will not be playable after a year. Typically I would agree that the past games, including and before NL, did have the disadvantage of after one year there is the potential every year will be extremely similar, but one thing NH has over past games is the ability to change things up every year through updates. I've said it before, I agree NH should step up its content and match NL's amount of things to do, but I've also said that I believe NH also doesn't need to because I find it to be a great game even with some features missing that were in NL. Either way, I think NH will be a game of new discoveries for at least a couple years while NL is basically set in stone the way it is.

Also, I'd like to know your opinion of NH when you first played it. Did you love it for a while and then grow bored? Or did you never really like it? I figure you must've liked some part of it if it convinced you to try NL. I ask because I'm not sure comparing 10 months of NH to less than a month of NL is a very fair comparison.

I will try to explain as well as elaborate what I said earlier. My "confidence" regarding to lack of playability after one year should be expressed like "one year + about 2,000 hours", where everything has been seen, experienced and all (or at least most) achievements have been completed. In my opinion will be no point to play any longer.
I think about NL the same, it's not a single accusation towards NH.

I consider myself lucky, as I laid my hands on NL, when has been completed, so now I'm comparing version 1.5, not earlier one.
Would you like to know my opinion? I will be more than happy to answer that.
First of all, word "love" is reserved for living creatures (people, animals), not for a things, including art, music, software etc. I can use word "like" instead.

My first contact with AC (as a franchise) was at some point in July / August 2020, NH wasn't my first AC game but the first one, I spent so many hours. I'm playing actively since late August / early September 2020 every single day. Until the end of 2020 I had not enough time to spend more time with other AC, but I had some experience already and have my opinion.
I liked, I like NH and never been bored. If this feeling will come to me, I would definitely stop playing - any game, not only AC.
I did not playing 10 months, but let's assume I started on the begin of September 2020, so now it gives me only 5 months. In the meantime I was playing NL, sometimes couple days, sometimes week or so, but in the New Year's Eve I was started to play NL every single day, keep playing NH. So, I'm comparing 5 months of NH experience to one month of NL experience.
This month was more than enough (for now) to compare everything has happened in January in NH and NL. I was clearly expressed, comparing those two, I more enjoy New Year's celebration in NH than NL.
There's many things I dislike in NL, I'm not a blind fanatic trying to prove NL is the best ever. For example, I dislike:

• Small screen of 3DS
• No TV output
• Lack of ability to see an item in storage
• Lack of auto-stack (fruits)
• Small inventory
• Poor visibility of art when attempting to buy from Redd's Gallery...

... and many more.

However, I can compare what we have in NH... or how much has been taken out, comparing to what we got. I wouldn't mind if NH would be crated from scratch, as completely new game with new idea, but when we got so many things copied and pasted from NL, and when many people are almost worshipping Nintendo for summer update, because we got Redd's, Art Gallery in Museum and diving, I can't be quiet and I'm saying it's what we got in the past, and it's nothing refreshing.

As a summary, something positive:

 

[Radio]

The game was worth the amount of money I paid for it. I've put hundreds of hours into it at this point and that's worth the "price" to "enjoyability" to "time spent" ratio. I don't expect them to do any major updates for several years; I think they'll just keep doing these small ones. The fact that NL even got a major update at all was not only super surprising, but also dropped several years after the game first came out. If they're already doing lots of minor updates as their update model, I don't really foresee them saving new features to put into a major update. I see them adding in new features alongside these event updates that we've been getting.

I'm just glad these updates are free. Most other popular Nintendo games makes you pay for DLCs for new content (Pokémon and Fire Emblem I can think of specifically which slapped on expensive DLCs for their games) and Animal Crossing just gives it to us for no charge, so I'm not going to complain much about it.

 

[ForgottenT]

I said on another thread that Brewster and The Roost were specifically mentioned by villagers back in April 2020 with coloured names. I highly doubt Nintendo would let dialogue like that in the game with his name coloured if they weren't planning on adding him at some point. They removed the dialogue thus far, so it's possible they could scrap the ideas for Brewster and The Roost, but I don't think Brewster is 100% ruled out honestly. If anything, there's a higher chance of him or a new pigeon coming back than not.

This does not prove Brewster coming back, I know. These pics could even be fake. But to say he is 100% not coming back is also a little too far-fetched if you ask me. Especially also considering data mines. Things can indeed be scrapped, but at the same time, you can't really ever prove that Brewster is coming back because we will never know until enough time passes.

If it's 2022 with no Brewster, then yes the chance begins to get slimmer. But it's 2021 with many missing NPCs, so we don't really know if they're continuing to add them throughout this year or forgetting about them completely just yet...

I'm no NH enthusiast, but no one can really assume things yet. That goes both ways.

I think the game were just rushed out the door, completely unfinished, when the game released my villagers were talking about the post office, and Brewster, but after an update they stopped, I can only assume that they were meant to be in the game, but just got scrapped because they couldn't be bothered, or figured they could just cut out content, and finish it later somehow, but forgot to remove the villagers dialogue talking about them...
The pictures are not fake..

 

[DVD]

I am well aware, but one thing a new game should be, is BETTER than the previous one, and it is lacking not only the content, but the fun.

NH isn't fun.

That's definitely an opinion

Which I don't agree with, because NL bored me much quicker and it got old real fast personally, but that's just how it is, not everyone can think the same; I just don't think it's fair to put it as if it was an objective fact like that when it clearly isn't

EDIT: just to clarify I'm not saying it's perfect or that it isn't missing content, it clearly is. But yet I still am having more fun with it, probably because of the larger amount of creative options; you can't customize half as much as you can in New Horizons in any previous game of the series and that's the one part I'm enjoying the most, and the nook miles thing does make it much more fun for me to complete challenges that have always been optional (completing the critterpedia, etc) but that I really didn't find any reason to complete in previous games. Maybe if the meow thing in NL had come with the first release I would've also enjoyed that in that game, but honestly the welcome amiibo update came out too late for me to care, I had already gotten over the game at that point

What I am saying is that it's still a good game even if it's missing stuff, which only means that it could be a freakin masterpiece if they chose to release everything that's missing. And honestly I don't think they should miss that oportunity because this game has the freaking potential to be an absolutely perfect Animal Crossing experience in my opinion

 

[Feraligator]

.

I mean, you are just completely disacknowledging my entire post because I already said the screenshots may not prove anything. That was not my point. I said it's too early too determine if Brewster and other NPCs are ruled out yet.

Anyways, it's not like anyone can change others' opinions on the internet, so if you really believe that then that's on you. Just don't start telling others that Brewster is not coming back because you, or anyone, has no proof of that.

 

[charmingpeach]

Guys, I think we are getting off track from the topic that was asked about. Everyone is free to have an opinion and like or dislike the game, although, in my opinion, I don't think a multi-millionaire company like Nintendo needs to be defended... Remember that it's their job to deliver a pleasant experience and now it's their turn to finish the game which was, factually, unfinished from the start. It's okay to admit so, and it's also okay to be positive about future updates, I'm sure they don't want to leave a sour taste in any fans' mouth and we will see NH become greater than NL, just give it time. I think one has to be a little too complacent to enjoy the base game of NH as is, which if you do, that's good, but the game honestly could use some ambition because it has a lot of potential, just be patient and trust the process.

 

[Elias_]

I'm not expecting anything other than Mario-related items and possibly some minigames mentioned in the datamine. I believe they've made it abundantly clear that when a picture of an NPC appears on the screen, the update is mostly focused on that NPC. In that case, two Mario-related items appear on screen, so I think that will be all. If they decide to add other minor stuff, we'll see, but I wouldn't bet on it.

However, now that all major holidays are out of the way, I'd love for them to focus on other minor holidays (Aprils' Fools Day, the return of the Flea Market, La-Di-Day, Yay Day or Bright Nights, to name but a few), as well as QoL updates everyone's been asking for and more NPCs present in previous games. I want updates that add events/items that will last for more than literally once a year.

I didn't know that there was a datamine mentioning minigames. Is there more information on this? A return of minigames would be amazing.

 

[Jinglefruit]

I'm certain there won't be an anniversary update too. But I've already decided I'm taking an entire year break from the game so that there's a years worth of updates for when I return. Stopped in Sept baring an odd day here/there to help friends and played the toy day event.

 

[meggiewes]

I'm certain there won't be an anniversary update too. But I've already decided I'm taking an entire year break from the game so that there's a years worth of updates for when I return. Stopped in Sept baring an odd day here/there to help friends and played the toy day event.

Just out of random curiosity. If there happens to be a really big update, will you play earlier than a year? I've been debating that too, but I like playing too much to stop just yet. I'll probably take a really solid break around the time Monster Hunter Rise comes out though.