I'm not expecting any AC information in the Direct tbh. If anything, I'd be more surprised than disappointed if any AC information shows up than if it didn't.
And this is just my own speculative analysis: Mario Kart 8 is still getting updates, until the end of this year, while AC the second most popular game on the Switch had its last major update a year ago? One would think that with Nintendo they'd be promoting the mess out of the game that is the currently most popular game in Japan of all time, but...no. Even BotW is still getting a lot of love from Nintendo, and while I understand that it has a sequel coming out soon, the initial game came out in 2017. So why does it feel like Nintendo is distancing from Animal Crossing New Horizons, even though the game should still pretty hot with an active user base?
It seems like Nintendo is trying to take a step back and reevaluate how they handle the Animal Crossing IP and how the consumer base relates and interacts with it. If this is true, it's pretty understandable why it seems like they're sunsetting this game so early compared to others. I mean, given everything that took place over the last two years involving their Animal Crossing property, if this is what they're doing, it makes sense to me. This game struck lighting in a bottle, took the entire world by storm, and became a household property overnight, all because of events beyond Nintendo's control. It became a battleground at some point to where Nintendo had to bluntly and aggressively defend their Animal Crossing IP from being sucked into partisan politics and from having other corporations violating their IP( I think the current sitting US president still has an NH island? Not too sure). For 2020-2021, nearly every brand, product, and celebrity had an NH island promoting their merchandise or website in direct violation of Nintendo's TOA.
This game got banned in a few countries because some governments feared they wouldn't be able to monitor their citizens through it. One of the game's directors had to delete her social media accounts because of the overwhelming harassment she kept getting over this game, which from my understanding is a first for someone who works directly with Nintendo. And do I even need to mention the joke of an organization that is PETA? New Horizons (in a sense) with no prompting from Nintendo became the world's pseudo-social media site, and Nintendo fought that, hard. And while I understand that all of this happened because of the pandemic, the reality is that finding your child-and family-friendly IP in the middle of a lot of real world havoc is alarming. Fact is, aside from massive profits, this game brought a lot to Nintendo's doorstep, and not all of it was good.
Thankfully Nintendo didn't suffer too much from all that, at least not financially. But these types of events may have Nintendo stepping back to reevaluate the marketing of the series going forward, which from a consumer point of view, may look like they're pulling away support. Internally it may just be a redefinition of some parameters, with Nintendo trying to make sure they always come out on top when it comes to the handling of their IPs.
But who knows? Like I said, this is just my one person speculative analysis, I could be completely wrong. In any case, I'm just looking forward to the next game and hoping it comes sooner than later.
