Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a social simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for Nintendo Switch, making it the fifth main game in the Animal Crossing series. In New Horizons, the player controls a character who moves to a deserted island after purchasing a getaway package from Tom Nook. Released worldwide on March 20, 2020, a player can play the game in a nonlinear fashion and develop the island as they choose. They can collect and craft items, tailor the island, and develop it into a community of anthropomorphic animals. Animal Crossing New Horizons thrives on players taking the time to try to collect and catch it all. From grabbing DIY recipes, clothing, and furniture items to catching bugs and fish, New Horizons promotes a collect-a-thon on many fronts. The museum functions as the center of player cataloging, as it maintains and displays all of the fossils, bugs, fish, and art pieces that players can acquire.

Animal Crossing New Horizons: Things To Know!

Gameplay: 

As in previous installments of the Animal Crossing series, New Horizons is a non-linear video game simulating real-time life. The player takes on the role of a customizable character who moves around a desert island after purchasing a vacation pack from Tom Nook, a recurring raccoon in the series. The game proceeds to an infinite gameplay as the player explores the island, and develops a community of anthropomorphic animals. Similar to the 2017 spin-off installment Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, the game introduces a crafting system that allows the user to turn materials into tools and furniture, which can be used to decorate the interior and exterior of places. The player will customize the character to their liking and will not divide hairstyles or facial features by gender. Players will also be able to choose their skin color, an option that debuted in the 2015 spin-off Animal Crossing: Happy Home. Designer and will appear for the first time in a main installment in New Horizons.

Nook miles, a new type of currency earned by performing certain tasks, can be used to purchase premium items. Players will be able to invite animals to live on their island and have the option to choose or influence where the animal builds its home. The game time will be adjusted to the northern or southern hemisphere, depending on the player’s location, the first time this option is given in the Animal Crossing series. Additionally, the windy weather will debut, which will be expressed in the movement of the leaves of the trees.

New Horizons will allow for both local and online cooperativity, and 4-8 characters will be allowed to occupy the island. The game will not be directly connected to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, although there will be items shared by the two games.

Development:

The development process for an Animal Crossing installment for the Nintendo Switch was confirmed in a Nintendo Direct on September 13, 2018, with an unspecified release date of 2019.

Nintendo released the game’s title and its first trailer at E3 2019 Nintendo Direct on June 11, 2019. The company also noted that the game would be delayed until 2020, stating, “to ensure that the game is the best of itself, we have to ask you to wait a little longer. Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser cited a desire to avoid burnout on the developer team and maintain a healthy work-life balance for Nintendo employees as the main reason for the delay.

Director Aya Kyogoku and producer Hisashi Nogami stated that they had chosen a deserted island as the game’s setting to differentiate it from previous Animal Crossing games, which are set in established villages, and to allow greater freedom to customize the game’s world.

In January, a 30-second trailer was released, showing the game’s box art. This art revealed new details, such as Faun’s Island (Harvey) and Cinnamon’s outfit in the game.

Interesting Facts:

Here’s why The Museum Owl hates bugs: 

Blathers the museum-managing owl from Animal Crossing: New Horizons is happy to accept any and all donations – with the exception being that he absolutely detests insects. 

Blathers the owl hates all bugs with a passion, but why? Because of the fact that New Horizons doesn’t explain Blathers entomophobia (fear of insects), veteran Animal Crossing players are less likely to be aware of Blathers backstory because it may not stop players from using bugs to terrorize Blathers anyways. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons never tried to explain or spell out the origins of Blathers (who in all honesty gladly accepts all sorts of different fish and mollusks without thinking twice, despite the terrifying appearances in Animal Crossing of the very unique real-life fish such as the Football fish or Coelacanth. 

This is especially odd considering that Blathers’ intense phobia of insects is ironic as most owl species actually eat insects in the natural world. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons shows us that despite an intense fear of all things bug-like, Blathers keeps his promise of properly storing and taking care of all of the player’s insect catches. Nonetheless, all of the bugs players donate can be found in various enclosures and spaces within Animal Crossing’s museum, with some insects such as butterflies openly flying around.

The reasons become a bit clear when you get to In Animal Crossing: Wild World where Blathers explains to the player his fear of bugs. 

When Blathers was a child, a mantis egg case hatched on his desk. This resulted in thousands of mantis bugs flying out and swarming around the baby owl. Even for those without a fear of insects, the thought of being surrounded by a cloud of bugs is uncomfortable at best. 

Now we know that his intense fear of bugs stems from a real and traumatic childhood event that has altered his behavior throughout his life.

Gulliver glitch was recently discovered: 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently received a patch update in 2021 to make room for changes to the Wedding Season, an event that will be returning from last year. This didn’t require a complete update and was completed over the internet. But, it also made room for a game-breaking glitch that scores of players have already reported.

Prior to the update, Gulliver was working completely fine and was spawning where he usually does, but the players have found it challenging to locate Gulliver since the update.  

For example, users have spotted Gulliver at odd locations and not where he is supposed to spawn, near the Animal Crossing beach. In addition to this, he appears at random places on the island and looks tuckered out.

Another online theory suggests that Gulliver and Gullivarr are different characters and that the glitch concerns Gulliver’s alter ego. But, during their anniversary, Nintendo included both Gulliver and Gullivarr, implying that they are different characters.

Hokko Life:

An uncanny resemblance to the fan-favorite, Animal Crossing, this new game is being released on Steam for PC gamers. Both Animal Crossing and Hokko Life are described as life simulator games. Secondly,  the art and animation style (called “Chibi” for Hokko Life is akin to the style that Nintendo used for Animal Crossing. 

All in all, it seems that Wonderscope has seen the growing popularity for Animal Crossing and wants to try it for PC gamers.