So no new content?

[Steampunk Mage]

Any reason that this Animal Crossing hasn't gotten new content since the Happy Home Paradise expansion, whereas New Leaf got the Welcome amiibo expansion years after it first released?

I feel like this entry is a bit lacking in content compared to New Leaf.

 

[Dunquixote]

Any reason that this Animal Crossing hasn't gotten new content since the Happy Home Paradise expansion, whereas New Leaf got the Welcome amiibo expansion years after it first released?

I feel like this entry is a bit lacking in content compared to New Leaf.

They made an announcement a couple years ago when the last content was introduced. That’s why; the game has been done being updated for a year or more now.

 

[Steampunk Mage]

They made an announcement a couple years ago when the last content was introduced. That’s why; the game has been done being updated for a year or more now.

So, why'd they stop releasing new content then? It could have gotten them even more money.

 

[Dunquixote]

So, why'd they stop releasing new content then? It could have gotten them even more money.

Idk. I don’t work for Nintendo. I don’t know how they think. I wonder a lot about their decisions too. Like if they had handled the scalping of the amiibo packs and not limited the sales, they could’ve made more money.

 

[kemdi]

Yeah, unfortunately Nintendo made it very clear a while ago that development and updates for New Horizons was finished with update 2.0. But look at the bright side: Animal Crossing is now one of Nintendo's most popular franchises, and it's the second highest selling game on the Switch. Plus the Switch's lifetime is coming to an end, and Nintendo has already confirmed the development of the Switch's successor. All this to say that the AC developers are more likely than not currently working on the next game in the series, which will likely be released on the upcoming Switch successor console. As much as I would love to see more NH updates, I'm more excited for the potential possibilities for whatever comes next with Animal Crossing.

 

[Halloqueen]

Nintendo has 10 production groups as part of its Entertainment Planning & Development Division, otherwise known as Nintendo EPD.

According to Wikipedia:

- Production Group No. 2 oversee and produce games developed by external studios and published by Nintendo, such as the Kirby, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Fire Emblem series.

- Production Group No. 3 develops the main The Legend of Zelda series.

- Production Group No. 4 develops casual and experimental games such as 1-2-Switch, Nintendo Labo, Ring Fit Adventure, Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain, Jump Rope Challenge, Game Builder Garage, Nintendo Switch Sports and Everybody 1-2-Switch!

- Production Group No. 5, with group manager Aya Kyogoku, develops the Animal Crossing and Splatoon series.

- Production Group No. 6 oversee and produce games developed by external studios and published by Nintendo, such as the Paper Mario, Metroid Prime and Luigi's Mansion series.

- Production Group No. 7 co-develops 2D Metroid games with MercurySteam and Famicom Detective Club games with MAGES.

- Production Group No. 8, also known as Nintendo EPD Tokyo, develops 3D Super Mario games.

- Production Group No. 9 develops the Mario Kart series and also worked on Arms.

- Production Group No. 10 develops 2D Super Mario games (including the Super Mario Maker series) and the Pikmin series.

- Smart Device Production Group, with group manager Hideki Konno, develop smartphone games alongside other EPD groups as well as produce games by external studios.

As mentioned in that quoted section, Production Group No. 5 develop both Animal Crossing and Splatoon.

I don't play the Splatoon series and don't really want to go do a deep dive into all the crossover amongst the Production Group No. 5 team since it's late here right now, but it can probably be reasonably assumed that focus was shifted more heavily into the development of Splatoon 3, which released in 2022.

Who knows what exactly was going through their heads over at Nintendo during New Horizons' development and post-release lifespan. It's entirely possible that what we got is all that they planned, but considering the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we don't really know to what degree that impacted the production and release of updates. Maybe there were more things planned that didn't end up seeing the light of day. Considering that the game sold so well, becoming not only the best selling Animal Crossing game and the second best selling Nintendo Switch game, but also the best selling game of all time in Japan and the 14th-best selling game in history, maybe they saw it as their work being done, that they didn't need to add anything else. Considering that massive reception, they probably did leave a good amount of money on the table, but that probably also depends on how well the Happy Home Paradise DLC sold, as a way to see who stuck around and didn't just drop the game after a few months.

To some of us longtime fans, or even people who had jumped into the series with New Leaf, certain aspects of New Horizons do seem lacking in comparison to New Leaf. For the subset of fans such as myself who, while we might enjoy New Horizons, are still disappointed in some regards, we just kind of have to hope that the lessons they took from New Horizons' success don't alter the series' future direction too radically from what we've liked and been accustomed to. Only time will tell though, whenever the next Animal Crossing game is released.

 

[LambdaDelta]

So, why'd they stop releasing new content then? It could have gotten them even more money.

what money?

the happy home paradise expansion aside, the updates were all free. plus at that point, they probably had the data to show that the game didn't have the drive in sales anymore to justify pooling further resources towards it, vs focusing on a new project

would it of been cool to get more content? absolutely, and at minimum, I wish they had at least done like past games and just in advance added in the yearly exclusive new year's items for all the possible in-game years. but them choosing to stop when they did makes absolutely logical sense in terms of business, for better and worse

 

[corlee1289]

No more new content.

After the addition of the Happy Home Designer, Nintendo said that they were done with the updates and that no new updates would be arriving afterwards

 

[faerie]

Despite Nintendo stating that they were done with ACNH, I still think it was a very bad decision. They had a great opportunity to strengthen the brand further, but I feel like for some they felt like they just dropped the game when for some it doesn’t feel finished. A big example is having the largest amount of visitors to a town per game, and really no multiplayer to support it.

 

[Clock]

Unfortunately 2.0 was the last update. One of the worst things they did was not add anymore was more years for the NY arch.

 

[Venn]

Sadly no. It was a shock to most of us who were expecting mostly new things where as everything that was added felt like it should've been in the game already. We can only hope the next one may be a bit better at this.

 

[Steampunk Mage]

Sadly no. It was a shock to most of us who were expecting mostly new things where as everything that was added felt like it should've been in the game already. We can only hope the next one may be a bit better at this.

If we were to get a "New Horizons Deluxe," then maybe it could present a second chance for the game to feel complete?

 

[kemdi]

If we were to get a "New Horizons Deluxe," then maybe it could present a second chance for the game to feel complete?

Doubt it. The last time Nintendo tried to give an Animal Crossing game a deluxe second chance (from Wild World to City Folk), City Folk bombed hard. Doing an NH re-release with addons will just make people feel mad that they're 'buying the same game twice' like what happened with City Folk.

 

[faerie]

I think another thing that contributes to the feeling of them abandoning the game in a way is the amount of updates pocket camp got. It felt like pocket camp set people’s expectations for new horizons pretty high. The furniture in pc is so elaborate and beautiful compared to NH imo. Granted it’s a gotcha, but one that so much more support than NH.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Despite Nintendo stating that they were done with ACNH, I still think it was a very bad decision. They had a great opportunity to strengthen the brand further, but I feel like for some they felt like they just dropped the game when for some it doesn’t feel finished. A big example is having the largest amount of visitors to a town per game, and really no multiplayer to support it.

I agree with this. There’s still work to be done, but since they left the project, all that unfinished work remains to be unfinished. I hope they take all of the flaws into consideration on the next Animal Crossing game.

 

[Giddy]

It felt more like - and someone who plays the game on youtube also said - that it felt like that specfic DL Update should've been part of the game as a whole at the start and not something you just add in suddenly.
If you played before any updates, and then reset the island and see how more complete it kinda felt with it?

Also the fact, that in this specific game, terraforming and designing an island were the main factors of the game, rather than interacting with villagers and experience the game as together with multiplayer. I still find it crazy, how we did get a lot of people for multiplayer but there was really nothing you could do in game together. Like we had to make our own things up.

For a game coming upto it's fith year, it really wouldn't be any point to update the game any more, and with the possibly of a new switch, i rather they focus on making a new game, with the notes on what they could've done better for this game.
Each game will have its own unique flaw.

 

[LambdaDelta]

Doubt it. The last time Nintendo tried to give an Animal Crossing game a deluxe second chance (from Wild World to City Folk), City Folk bombed hard. Doing an NH re-release with addons will just make people feel mad that they're 'buying the same game twice' like what happened with City Folk.

technically, doubutsu no mori+ and e+ were essentially just deluxe versions of doubutsu no mori and animal crossing, respectively

even more so than city folk was to wild world, and I say that as someone who's heavily criticized city folk for basically just riding off the coattails of wild world


like it's wild to think about now, but if counting all the games of the time regardless of region, it took them over 4 years and 4 games before they finally stopped rehashing the base doubutsu no mori core

 

[Sayori]

i’ve heard opinions on this topic before, and i thought i’d add in one more idea i’ve heard that makes sense to me;

another reason why acnh seems so vast and bland may be due to a few of the updates having a bunch of features all at once, which caused (1) any other small updates they did seemed minuscule, and (2) there to be far fewer updates that they could’ve released and as a result, the lifespan of acnh ended a lot quicker.

 

[-Blue-]

You know, we never did get a rerelease of this game with all the updated stuff did we? So what happens when this game becomes so old and Nintendo doesn't support the Switch anymore? Oh well, you just get March 2020 NH with nothing else? That's even worst than what happened with Wild World.

But yea we will never know what Nintendo's true intentions were. They are never transparent. The pandemic happened at just the right time, as they released the game, that most were using it as an escape. So they weren't as quick to judge how lacking the content was. I worked through all of the pandemic and was so exhausted. Those years are such a blur now. I do remember coming home and just wanting to play the game, but the lacking updates and how grindy everything was just didn't do it for me. Everything about the game felt like it was done in a way to pad time and distract us from how barebone it was at launch. Maybe not, but it feels like that to me.

It's also a shame there isn't any multiplayer and the updates that people were going wild for when we were being starved for content were things the previous games had from the beginning. There wasn't any patch to bring it in. We know we were really starved for content when everyone was going wild over holding cotton candy. That was it. That was the update. We get to hold cotton candy lol. Also how the fandom went wild over people clipping into rivers and furniture like pools and how it looked cool with them swimming/sitting like it's a bathtub.

Sadly the NH crew were stretched between two projects New Horizon and Splatoon. They choose to do the bare minimum with NH and then dropped it for the project they thought would be more anticipated and popular. I'm sure they never thought AC would take off like it did so it was too late with their corporate business planning to keep a team on to do some smaller stuff. So instead in 2021 they just dumped everything and were like 'ok stop asking us.'

It really is a shame how they handled this game from start to finish.

 

[McRibbie]

• I think the Welcome amiibo update happened because Animal Crossing amiibo had been developed for both HHD and amiibo Festival and amiibo are very much a good fit for AC, because there was a good amount of furniture developed for HHD that could be added to the game alongside a new wave of amiibo cards using the few villagers that made a comeback in HHD, plus around 45 others, and because the next AC game was still very much in some form of early planning at the time and it helped fill the gap somewhat. This time around however, amiibo are still very much a thing and there hasn't been any kind of new accessory that AC needs to urgently capitalise on, the sequel to HHD was a DLC add-on to NH and all the furniture specific to that, and there's no Wii U to not be sure if there's going to be an Animal Crossing game on. The only real thing pointing in the favour of a "Welcome amiibo-style update!" at this moment in time is Pocket Camp's imminent shutdown, and even then, is anybody wanting the AC equivalent of the MK8DX Booster Course Pass?
• while it's true that Animal Crossing and Splatoon share a development group, it does not mean that there is a fixed team consisting of the exact same people who only work on those two games. All that really means is that they share a producer in Hisashi Nogami (and even then, he used to be one of the directors from the GC game to the Wii game), they share some of the staff at Monolith Soft Kyoto (who primarily focus on concept art), and they both, like most Nintendo games, pull from the available pool of staff at Nintendo. You'd be surprised where people turn up: art director/IRL inspiration for Brewster Koji Takahashi has also worked on the 2D Zelda games, including Echoes Of Wisdom. Script leader Makoto Wada started off as a designer for stuff like Punch-Out, directed Mario Kart DS and Wii Music, and more recently also worked on the scripts for Pikmin 3 & 4. Kazumi Totaka's the voice of freakin' Yoshi, for crying out loud! While I'm not personally 100% au fait with who's regularly working on all the games developed at Nintendo (so I can't go with any certainty "ah, yes, X worked on X game" without looking it up), I think it's worth, y'know, having at least some vague knowledge of who's actually regularly involved with AC development and burying the "AC and Splatoon are developed by the same team" soundbyte that gets trotted out whenever AC or Splatoon ends up disappointing in some way, because the reality is that most people are moving around onto different projects when they're needed.
• I'm not gonna lie, I do think stopping as soon as they did was incredibly sad... but at the same time, I'm increasingly of the opinion that Animal Crossing's not just "content" that can be moved around from game to game, and each game has its own unique thing that everything's built around. A lot of stuff people are missing is sadly stuff that doesn't fit in with NH. Not everything, in all fairness: Furniture, yeah, there's a load of stuff I miss there, hopefully it turns up again in the next game. Not entirely sure where minigames would have gone exactly given Kapp'n is doing the Seasonal Resources Tour, but yeah, also a shame they're not there (even if I am going to be controversial and say "but a large amount of the ones in NL are just stuff you can do with a timer anyway").
• there's also the matter of have you seen Nintendo's game lineup on the Switch from 2022 onwards? It is a combination of sequels, remakes, ports, entries in lesser Nintendo series or some combination of them, slowly but steadily winding down the Switch, leading towards the announcement we're going to get sometime between now and the end of March. It is very possible, and by very possible I mean guaranteed, that at some point between the end of 2021 and now development started on the next game in the series, because at some point around then Switch successor game development started at Nintendo.