What will you do differently in the next Animal Crossing game?

[TN4U]

I think I successfully avoided trying to spoil myself too much with New Horizons when it first came out. I think the only two times I found out about things before I experienced them were the requirements to unlock the amiibo scanner, and how your own birthday is celebrated as I'm a December baby. Everything else I tried to find out for myself. As I was also watching a daily livestream of Vinny from Vinesauce be ahead of the game by a day at the same time, I would only watch his stream after doing my in-game tasks for the day. Eventually, he stopped playing daily, and I got well ahead as I continued to play daily for the next year. Those full streams are on his YouTube channel, but I haven't revisited them since mid-2020 as they contain quite a bit of (uncomfortable for me) virus references.

As for the actual question being asked, I'll probably do a few things differently...

• For one, several villagers that I never had in a main town will probably become residents, such as Lolly and Roscoe.
  • As it stands right now, I'm only planning on trying to get Dotty, Mallary and Lopez back.
  • Bob - despite being my all-time favorite - might get changed out with Punchy, though I'm not entirely sure yet.
• I'll utilize online multiplayer right away, as I've finally found people I can play Animal Crossing with (AKA all you lovely people here on TBT). I didn't use NH's online visiting features until over a year past the game's release.
• I'll probably take the stalk market more seriously if there's an objective or goal to accomplish again. I tried it several times early on in NH, then got bored and never completed the Nook Miles goal until two years later.

Yes, there was an 8-year gap between New Leaf and New Horizons, but keep in mind that the gap from City Folk to New Leaf was roughly 4 years. Granted, City Folk never got content updates to extend its replayability as it was on the Wii, but it's still something to think about. I stand by my theory that we won't hear any new Animal Crossing game-related content until at least Splatoon 3 stops receiving content updates, and that will probably take at least another year for that to happen.

 

[Halloqueen]

I don't know that I'd do anything differently in the next Animal Crossing game because I don't know what new aspects, if any, will be introduced. That aside, whether anything particularly new is introduced, I've played the games the same way since the GameCube game and enjoy my style of play so I don't expect to change.

I've always been a time traveler because I get the most enjoyment out of playing that way. I find playing the expected day-to-day way is comparatively boring and also too demanding; I don't want to have to play every day like it's some kind of chore to complete. Inversely to other people, I get burned out playing the standard way faster than I do with time travel. New Horizons' patch updates for the events did slow me down in that first year, but I still time traveled anyway. If the next Animal Crossing game follows the same patch update release pattern as New Horizons did, it will probably be the same. Eventually, when the content well dries up, I'll be back to my usual amount.

I always like to come up with a new theme to base my town or island around in these games, and choose villagers that best fit that theme. I also choose villagers who I haven't had in previous games so I can have new experiences. That's not really different though since it's what I like to do anyway. Considering my track record of being terrible at coming up with names for things, I probably ought to take more time in the lead-up to the game's release and come up with a name for the town/island/whatever before launch.

I guess I probably ought to wait to hear if perfect fruits return in the next game; if I knew they weren't in New Horizons when I was setting up my island, I probably would've chosen cherries instead of apples.

Also, I guess it would be nice to get in on the ground level of anything similar to the Nook Miles Tickets demand from the early days of New Horizons if there's anything similar in the next game. People seemed to do well for themselves with that, but I didn't really get to take advantage of that, being a buyer rather than a seller.

That's about all I can think of currently.

That said, I don't know how interested I'll be in the next game, depending on how Nintendo handles things with their next console. I've enjoyed games on the Switch, but the Switch itself is kind of shoddily put together in comparison to previous Nintendo consoles and the company felt more money-grubbing than in previous years. That second point is unsurprising though, since you aren't going to find many people running businesses similar to the late Satoru Iwata who actually cut his own pay to support the employees. But that's just speaking of Nintendo itself.

As it pertains to Animal Crossing itself, I've always been drawn to the series for the interior decorating and hated the awkward, disappointing room sizes in New Horizons when you used to be able to have big rooms when fully expanded in the previous games. If we have those ridiculously small rooms in the next game, that's going to be a blow to my interest. We also need more things to do with friends online like Tortimer Island's bug catching, fishing, and tours, as there's just...nothing worth doing with friends online in New Horizons. If the next game lacks such things, I don't know whether I'd actually buy it.

 

[danmokun]

For the next Animal Crossing game, I am not looking at player made content on the internet. You know the expression "ignorance is bliss"? I would see how immense people would do their islands. How creative they are with interior designing. How intricate and detailed they are with their game.

I didn't like seeing that because it affected my perspective on my own choices and even if I committed to my own play style, seeing what others are doing and I'm not made me feel like I'm missing out or being left out.

 

[nocctea]

i hope i don't reset my town! i've always been a chronic resetter, and then ultimately miss my first town

 

[himekirako]

i might look at other maps available, that's something i've been interested in with NH but not something that would force me to reset haha

 

[Shawna]

similar to what someone else said, I will try not to reset as often as I do with previous games

 

[Hypno KK]

It's funny because it's the opposite for me. NL was the first AC game I properly played and before buying it, I obsessively researched it. I didn't spoil myself exactly but I had a fairly good idea of what to expect, pros and cons, etc. I decided to buy it based on this and had a great experience with it.

With NH, I figured I already knew and liked the franchise and that there was no question I'd love the game. I didn't do much research about it beforehand other than seeing stuff like screenshots on social media. I just took the plunge and bought it ASAP. While I like the game, it didn't really live up to my expectations. I didn't know how limiting it would be to mostly play it without an Online subscription, I didn't know about some of the downsides of gameplay, etc. I may have ended up getting it sooner or later but I probably wouldn't have rushed to get it as soon as I could afford it.

I also saved up and bought a Switch, this was for a number of games but NH was the deciding factor. I kind if regret it now if I'm honest.

For a next AC game, I'll try to research it beforehand to decide whether I'll totally love it and get it immediately or if I'll wait. Then again, I have no idea if I'll even get the next Nintendo console during its lifespan, I don't like a lot of what Nintendo's been doing.

 

[Suguri]

I’ll prevent myself from being spoiled like the OP said. In addition, I may consider giving my town/island/whatever a certain theme and working with it as a challenge, since I usually don’t have one in mind from the beginning. I may also try to force myself to do more terraforming if it returns (which I’m pretty sure it will). I’m not too keen on time traveling (did it once on my island and regretted it) but maybe I’ll give that another shot? If all this doesn’t work out I can always reset, start fresh, and go back to how I’m playing AC right now.

 

[Dunquixote]

Maybe reduce how much I time travel if I don’t stop entirely. I might want to try come up with my own outfit combinations without using custom designs since I’ve seen everyone here coming up with really great outfits and I realize maybe by using so many custom designs that I’m missing out a little. Aside from that, it’s hard to say until I see what the next game is like.

 

[LambdaDelta]

I'll play it on a different system with a different location and player name and map and (probably) villagers and etc

 

[Dunquixote]

In addition to maybe less time traveling, I think I’ll try more villagers out. I was just starting to do that before I took a break from NH.

 

[Doo]

I want to stay away from spoilers more than I did for New Horizons, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself I liked discovering stuff for myself in the older games but I also found it quite frustrating as a child when I couldn’t work out how to do the things on the box art. I probably wouldn’t be so clueless nowadays but I liked being able to feed off other people’s excitement for New Horizons. I really don’t know what I’m gonna do. Just whatever feels right lol

 

[micat]

what’s weird is that I sort of did the same thing with NH, where I was just looking at a bunch of NH trailer analyses, tumblr blogs and videos discussing the game, I even watched the Treehouse preview of the game live.. but I don’t feel like I spoiled myself at all, since I never looked up the specifics of the games’ mechanics, like when I would get the upgrade to Nook’s Cranny or whether villagers got sick or moved out on their own. I think the updates also helped prevent me from getting spoiled, and the fact that I lost interest in the game and stayed away from the fanbase for a good period of time ;-;

anyways I don’t think I would really be as obsessive over new trailers and promo art for the next game as I was for NH, I think I’ll be fine just seeing trailers for the game. I think gameplay wise, I’ll try to interact with the turnip market more, so I won’t be constantly short on bells. I’ll also try to send more letters to my villagers since I barely did that in NH.

 

[KittenNoir]

Next time in game I will definitely build my island first and then look at players island tours online.

I made the mistake of looking at others island tours which didn’t help as I kept restarting my island over and over.

I would also start saving up my bells in the beginning instead of buying stuff I don’t need and upgrade my house first to allow more inventory.

 

[deana]

I would like to get a different native fruit I think and try out some different villagers who I've never had before. Aside from that though I probably would not do much differently. My decorating tastes are really mostly the same and big overall themes are not my thing.

When I was getting New Horizons I knew for sure that I wanted to use red brick path because that's what I originally wanted for my New Leaf town but I could never find one that looked good (plus the extremely limited custom design space in that game made it easier for me to go with a grey brick path instead). The New Horizons islands are actually so large though that I got to have a few different path areas (including my beloved red brick) so I really feel like I got a good mix of everything out of it.

 

[moonbyu]

i'll try not to time-travel often, and maybe have different villagers instead too. i'd also like to try out a different "aesthetic" too.

 

[Khaoticnoize187]

See how quickly i can get stung by bees lol like i have a strange thing seeing what kind of bad stuff can happen to your mcs lol.