Our biggest takeaways from the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Direct

By Lisa Marie Segarra February 20, 2020

Just a month shy of its release, Nintendo unveiled an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct packed with new gameplay details. The presentation did not disappoint if the chatter online is any indication. The latest Nintendo Direct, and the first since September 2019, answered multiple questions on how island life in the new sequel will play out. It even gave fans features they didn’t even know they wanted.

Contents

Returning characters and buildings
You can change island terrain
You get a home, and a new loan
You can recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data
Release date

These are the key details from Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct from February 20.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct 2.20.2020

Returning characters and buildings

Animal Crossing favorites like Blathers, who runs the museum, and the Able sisters, who own a tailor shop of the same name, were nowhere to be seen in previous videos of the game. Fans grew concerned that living on a deserted island might also mean abandoning the collecting and displaying of fossils, fish, insects, and art, or the ability to buy a stylish wardrobe.

However, the latest Direct revealed that players can unlock these characters and buildings as the island develops. They’ll even get to dictate where on the island they’re placed. The previous installment, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, let players wield this power over public works projects in their role as mayor. But that was limited to minor items, like decorations.

Characters like Gulliver, who frequently finds himself washed ashore and lost, and the wandering ghost Wisp, make appearances as well. The island encourages tourism, and will allow familiar traveling merchants like Sahara, famous for her wallpaper and carpet combos.

You can change island terrain

For the first time in the Animal Crossing franchise, it’s possible to change where cliffs and ramps start and end. Players can also chip away at the land itself, extending a river to add more water, or narrowing it to make room for more buildings.

Ramps can consist of wooden or brick stairs, or simple planks. In a nod to a popular fan activity, New Horizons will let players shape natural paths with different materials. It seems like a simple feature, but many players have asked for this, or created workarounds in previous games. Villagers can also build bridges across rivers with multiple designs.

You get a home, and a new loan

When Nintendo first showed off New Horizons, it promised players tents to live in. That very generous giveaway wasn’t enough for those who enjoy remodeling and decorating full houses, however.

The Direct showed it’s possible to build a home with plenty of renovations and expansions to boot. The new game overhauls the design mechanics, and will allow players to move multiple objects at once. The more precise controls offer freedom and specificity, even letting players change the direction of a carpet’s pattern.

In true Animal Crossing fashion, this comes with a loan from Tom Nook, which was prefaced with a note saying there is no interest or approval process. Still, Animal Crossing die-hards will recognize it as the familiar loan process of CEO, and overlord, Tom Nook.

You can recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data

The biggest controversy to hit the beloved franchise came when Nintendo announced New Horizons would not support cloud saving. Fans worried that if anyone loses or damages their Switch, where game data is saved, they’ll lose it forever.

The Nintendo Direct noted that players can, in fact, recover save data. The feature, which comes with a vague “sometimes after launch” timeline, carries some fine print, however.

Players can only retrieve the save data once, and they must be Nintendo Online members. Nintendo Online is the company’s subscription service that offers online play and cloud saving for certain games.

Release date

The release date was known before this Nintendo Direct. In case you’ve forgotten, though, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will arrive on March 20, 2020 for Nintendo Switch.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Lisa Marie Segarra

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Lisa Marie Segarra is the Gaming Section at Digital Trends. She's previously covered tech and gaming at Fortune Magazine and…

Gaming

Nintendo’s mobile games are more influential than you might think

Alear and Marth open a door in Fire Emblem Engage.

Nintendo’s mobile games don’t get enough credit. While Nintendo had some undeniable hits like Pokémon Go and Fire Emblem Heroes, many consider the rest of its mobile efforts fairly underwhelming and even somewhat disappointing for a video game company of Nintendo’s stature. While nothing ever quite reached the high bar Pokémon Go set in 2016, Nintendo’s mobile games are a bit more influential than they get credit for.
Over the past few years, games like Pokémon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have built upon their mobile counterparts. Then, during the September 13 Nintendo Direct, Fire Emblem Engage’s announcement and main gimmick cemented that Nintendo isn’t just viewing mobile games as a mostly failed side experiment. While they might not be the most successful games out there, their DNA is creeping into the Nintendo Switch’s bestselling titles.
Mediocre mobile returns
Nintendo’s mobile gaming efforts kicked off in the mid-2010s. Niantic created the AR game Pokemon Go, which quickly became a smashing success in 2016. In the six years since, the game has generated around 678 million installs and $6 billion in player spending, according to data from Sensor Tower.
While working with Niantic proved fruitful for The Pokemon Company, Nintendo partnered with DeNA for most of its initial mobile games. Unfortunately, none of these quite reached the heights analysts and Nintendo expected. Super Mario Run was a smash hit at launch but failed to sustain much interest and consistent revenue, so it’s considered a disappointment by Nintendo.
Meanwhile, other games like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, Dr. Mario World, and Dragalia Lost launched, and while they’ve still made lots of money for Nintendo, most haven't matched the success of the most popular mobile titles. The biggest exception to this is Fire Emblem Heroes, a gacha game where players can summon classic Fire Emblem characters. It’s had over $1 billion in player spending alone as of June 2022 and is Nintendo’s “flagship title on the [mobile} platform,” according to Sensor Tower.
More recently, Nintendo tried to recapture the success of Pokemon Go with Niantic’s Pikmin Bloom, although that game has reportedly disappointed as well. Overall, it’s understandable why some people are surprised to see only a couple of surefire mobile hits from a company with the pedigree of Nintendo and consider it a side venture that never realized its full potential. If you look closely at the console games in these series that Nintendo put out since, though, it isn’t ignoring everything learned while making mobile games.
Mobile's monumental impact
Nintendo has the masterful ability to find the strongest elements of an idea, draw those out, and then expand upon them to create something uniquely memorable. We’ve seen it do this time and time again with subsequent entries of its flagship series, but it’s a mindset it has applied to its mobile games upon closer inspection.
As far back as 2018, Pokemon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee recognized the charm of not needing to battle a Pokemon to capture it, and incorporated that into a traditional RPG experience. More recently, items and mechanics like gardening and cooking from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp made their way into Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was able to revive its live service offerings by repurposing the best tracks and assets from Mario Kart Tour.
Fire Emblem Engage – Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch
The legacy of Nintendo’s mobile games could also be felt in the September 13 Nintendo Direct. The showcase’s first announcement was Fire Emblem Engage, which is turn-based strategy game where the main gimmick is being able to summon classic Fire Emblem characters with a ring. While it doesn’t look like Fire Emblem Engage goes full gacha, it’s clear that Nintendo recognized how people liked collecting and using classic Fire Emblem characters in a new adventure, so the developers drew and expanded upon that idea for Fire Emblem Engage.
Before the announcement of Pikmin 4, Shigeru Miyamoto also took a lot of time to highlight Pikmin Bloom. While we don’t know much about Pikmin 4’s gameplay, Nintendo could find some aspects of that game’s exploratory experience, weekly challenges, or something I’m not even thinking of to freshen up the next mainline game. The same could even happen with Super Mario Run the next time Nintendo decides to make a 2D Mario game.
While watching Fire Emblem Engage’s reveal during the latest Nintendo Direct, it became clear that Nintendo’s mobile games have quietly become influential forces in the company's console games. Nintendo has slowly plucked the best ideas out of them and brought them into Switch games without extra monetization. While the future is cloudy for Nintendo's seemingly stalled mobile push, I hope the company can still find a place for its games on mobile, using the platform as a space to experiment with its beloved series.

Gaming

Our 5 biggest predictions for the September Nintendo Direct: Metroid, Zelda, and more

Samus gives a thumbs up in Metroid Prime.

Following months of Nintendo-related leaks and a third-party showcase in June, the second full-fledged Nintendo Direct of 2022 is finally happening. February's show had neat reveals of games like Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Mario Strikers: Battle League, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and Nintendo Switch Sports. Now, Nintendo Switch players hope the September 2022 Nintendo Direct will give a clear idea of what to expect throughout the rest of this year and into the first months of 2023.
Ahead of the showcase's announcements, rumors about a couple of key Nintendo classic remasters heavily circulated. There are also delayed Nintendo Switch titles that we hope finally get release dates. Although there's a chance that none of the following predictions will come to fruition tomorrow, it's still fun to guess what might pop up. As such, here are five announcements we hope to see at the September 2022 Nintendo Direct.
Metroid Prime returns

Metroid fans ate well last year with the release of Metroid Dread, but they've still waited since 2017 for the long-delayed Metroid Prime 4. Although there's nothing to suggest that Metroid Prime 4 will pop up here just yet, a remaster or remake of Metroid Prime seems much more likely. A Nintendo Switch version of the GameCube classic was subject to rumors for years, but rumblings of the game's existence really ramped up in 2022.
From Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb to prolific Nintendo leaker Emily Rogers, the more reliable parts of the gaming rumor mill say that some sort of Metroid Prime rerelease project is in the works at Nintendo. Grubb even claims that it's coming this year, so Nintendo would need to reveal it very soon if that's true. If it is real, the biggest question surrounding Metroid Prime on Nintendo Switch is just how much of a reimagining it is. Will it be an HD port, a more substantive remaster, or a from-the-ground-up remake? Hopefully, we won't have to wait much longer to find out.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess get rereleased

Gaming

Disney Dreamlight Valley sets itself apart from Animal Crossing in 5 key ways

A player walks by Wall-E while heading into a cave in Disney Dreamlight Valley.

Animal Crossing is one of gaming's most popular franchises, giving players a much-needed break from the world of challenging, narrative-driven, and thought-provoking adventures in favor of zen community management. Few other games have managed to match its unique gameplay loop in ways that feel equally rewarding and relaxing, but that's not stopping Disney from shooting its shot at the genre with Disney Dreamlight Valley.

While the two games are no doubt very similar, Dreamlight Valley has a handful of notable features that will likely sway many players in one direction or the other. Let's take a look at five of the biggest ways these two life simulation titles differ from one another.