Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons on March 20, 2020, for the Nintendo Switch and it was a big hit for the console. This game will forever be iconic among the Animal Crossing franchise since it was released during the COVID-19 Pandemic when players around the world were stuck at home and were able to connect with friends and family by playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Since the release of New Horizons it has received a few large updates giving players a reason to play the game again, but all of a sudden Nintendo has stopped providing updates for the game so soon. The Happy Home Paradise update was the last one we’ve seen hit the game and it looks like it will forever be that way.
Happy Home Paradise did add a lot of new features to Animal Crossing: New Horizons such as new ways to customize your home, going to a whole new island to start a job creating houses for villagers around the Animal Crossing Universe, and a lot more. That update also brought the famous Brewster to the museum.
Other updates we saw within New Horizons’ first year was the ability to swim and catch new creatures and that brought in Pascal who’d give you pearls that would help craft even more furniture. Another update that was brought to the game was Mario-themed items.
Despite all of these fantastic updates, the game could’ve been better supported by Nintendo. There are missing features from old Animal Crossing games and we could have seen even more because the game is still so young.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is among the best-selling Nintendo Switch games at over 42 million units sold as of June 30, 2023.
What’s missing from Animal Crossing New Horizons?
One of the most iconic features in Animal Crossing games is upgrading the Nook stores and yes you do that in New Horizons, but only once. You start off with Timmy and Tommy selling products out of a tent and after a while, you’ll upgrade to the Nook’s Cranny where you can choose to place it anywhere.
The Nook’s Cranny only upgrades to a larger version of the shop, but it stops there. In previous games, you’d go through at least 4 phases of the shop, and like Wild World or City Folk, the last store possible was the Nookington’s.
New Horizons also doesn’t feature some of the exotic fruit that was in New Leaf along with the Auction House that was once a thing in past Animal Crossing games that no one misses too much. It was great to see Mario items return, but other beloved items from games like Zelda, Metroid, and Pikmin were missing from New Horizons. You could argue the themed furniture sets were missing too, but crafting changed a lot of that in this game.
It’s not even old features missing that are the problem, it’s the fact that Nintendo stopped supporting a game that is second behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in sales. If you look at Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the game has received five waves of DLC that include many new courses and now new characters. In the year 2023, the possibilities could be endless for a game like Animal Crossing: New Horizons because they could add more villagers, even more furniture items, and who knows maybe find a way to make your island bigger than it is.
Just like me, I think the entire Animal Crossing community could agree we all find it strange how the support for New Horizons had suddenly stopped. It felt like the game was just getting started.
Let us know in the comments what you think could improve in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
