Back in June 2019, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was formally announced for the Nintendo Switch. At the time, it was expected to release at the end of the year. Eventually, Nintendo pushed the date back to March 20, 2020, to ensure the final product matched the vision the developers wanted. While disappointing long-time fans, it provided Nintendo the time to polish and promote the game in a timely fashion. It was never expected to fail, but the delayed-release increased its sales far beyond initial expectations.
The game became a massive hit, surpassing its predecessor’s lifetime sales in only six weeks. Within this time frame, it sold more than 13 million copies across the world, becoming one of the best selling games on the Nintendo Switch of all time. It gained mainstream attention, covered by many large news outlets, such as the Washington Post, CNN, and Forbes. The game recently hit two months on the market and the news doesn’t die down. Recently, Saturday Night Live created a short skit covering the nuances of the game.
The changes in-game have inspired creative players to find ways to make the community more connected. One of the changes includes the introduction of one-time codes, titled dodo codes. The introduction of dodo codes allows people to easily visit each other islands and trade items quickly. With an easy way to trade in-game items, one group of developers took notice and created Nookazon, an online e-marketplace specifically for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The website undergoes constant updates to keep up with its growing audience and user demands.
Harvey’s island, a new location where users can create their own scenes on a separate island, lets users create their own stories and photographs. People upload their creations to YouTube, ranging from recreations of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Adult Swim scenes to writing entirely original horror stories. Many use Harvey’s Island as a base, expanding the stories to their own islands as needed.
Arguably, one of the most popular changes is terraforming, a feature allowing players to tear down and recreate the structure of their islands. It allows players to create cliffs, waterfalls, and paths based on their own ideas. While some fans are using the tools sparingly, others are tearing apart their entire towns to create hyper-detailed images.
Despite the popularity following it, the game has faced scrutiny from long-time fans. Some have criticized the game for removing key characters and features seen in previous games. Most notably, tools have a limited life span, breaking after a pre-determined amount of time. In addition, there’s a larger discussion surrounding villager popularity, and how some are sold for in-game currency and even real money. Newer villagers introduced in New Horizons are likely to be worth more because unlike previous iterations, there are currently no amiibo cards for these characters. In addition, hackers are changing the base game, adding in several quality-of-life features such as high stacking limits, star fragment trees, and allowing bug and fish trading among players. While Nintendo hasn’t openly responded to all the existing issues, it has filed two lawsuits against hackers.
Some of the early attention surrounding the game has died down, in part to local governments starting to ease restrictions. However, this doesn’t mean the game’s fanbase will die down. Nintendo has promised consistent updates for the game throughout the year. Most recently, Nintendo released an update reintroducing previous features such as the art exhibit in the museum and bushes. If the updates remain as consistent as we’ve seen so far, it’s likely the fanbase isn’t going anywhere.