Animal Crossing: New Horizons added a 2.0 update and the Happy Home Paradise DLC to offer players new experiences unlike anything in the previous iteration of the game. Players can now have control over their island residents, as well as their homes, with island ordinances and home remodeling.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons already had a few unique customization options, but the update and DLC add an entirely new way to play the game. Unfortunately, for players only able to access the free update, most of the content can be thoroughly explored in just a couple of hours. However, when combined with the large Happy Home Paradise expansion, players will have a lot of new options with consistent customization unlocks.
There are a lot of content expansions that crossover between the DLC and the 2.0 update. For example, users can buy new furniture at the resort in Happy Home Paradise, then bring it Cyrus on Harv's island for unique customization options. Although most of the completely new content is in the DLC, there are a few enjoyable and diverse options to explore in the 2.0 update. Players can control their island residents by enacting Animal Crossing: New Horizons' island ordinances, but remodeling their homes will only be available with the DLC. Having both significantly increases the replayability of the game.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 Update
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 is the last free major update, and it brings several new features. Players can visit Photopia to invest in new, permanent shops for NPCs that were previously only available as random, traveling vendors. This allows players to frequently purchase items from NPCs like Redd, Leif, or Kicks. New shops, like Katrina's fortune-telling, are also available to invest in on Harv's island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The addition of these NPCs gives players more to do each day and more reasons to save up bells.
Along with Harv's new NPCs, players can interact with Kapp'n to visit new, remote islands, or help open up Brewster's café inside the museum. The new islands can be located in either hemisphere, have different seasons, and can produce gyroid fragments, but they are otherwise the same as the ones players can visit with a Nook Miles Ticket. The boat rides also cost the same as a ticket: 1,000 Nook Miles. The 2.0 update features much more than a few new NPCs.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons includes a variety of new items and activities. There are new hairstyles in the 2.0 update, as well as the ability to use ceiling decorations and lighting fixtures. The updates from the free 2.0 version add more convenience and a bit more for players to explore, but it mostly consists of minor expansions on existing game mechanics. From the café and the addition of island ordinances to group stretching and permanent ladders, players will be able to explore more easily and interact consistently with various NPCs. A larger portion of the updates and new features are part of the paid expansion, Happy Home Paradise.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Happy Home Paradise DLC
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Happy Home Paradise DLC introduces players to a new area of the game. They will have the opportunity to work at a resort designing vacation homes for visitors, VIPs, and even their own island residents. Like Sims, the Happy Home Paradise DLC gives players a catalog of furniture, items, and atmospheric effects to choose from when customizing vacation homes. Unfortunately, the furniture is gridlocked at one of four positions, so there's no way to angle items. This can leave some rooms feeling cluttered or disorganized, especially in the beginning when the size of the room can't be changed.
As players design more homes, they will unlock new features and the ability to build facilities. Each type of facility is predetermined, but players have access to the full design catalog to build them any way they choose. The same is true for vacation homes: players are able to design them with almost complete control, but there are a few requirements that need to be met, such as incorporating specific furniture in a home or having a cash register at the facility. The prerequisites are generally items that players would include anyway, so they don't hinder or stifle the creative process.
One of the only downsides to playing through the Happy Home Paradise DLC is the repetition of vacation home themes. Some of the requests from clients are very similar, if not exactly the same, and it can get tedious designing a house with the same furniture for the third time. For example, one client may request a space theme, and another a futuristic theme, but the furniture recommended for both is pretty much the same. Luckily, there is a fix to this later in players' careers, because they are able to suggest themes rather than follow the client's predetermined one. Suggesting a new theme means starting from scratch without any prerequisites. This option becomes available towards the end of the career path, though, and players will still need to design 30 homes and five facilities regardless of whether or not they use this function.
Once reaching the end of the career and completing every milestone, players will be able to take all the skills they've unlocked back to their main island to remodel their residents' homes. This feature adds a lot of new customization options to the island as players can completely control how each home looks. Unlike vacation homes, players will need to pay a fee to Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Tom Nook every time they remodel a home. This mechanic is very fitting for Tom Nook's personality, and the price isn't all that much compared to the expensive fees he charges the player for home loans. Players are also able to use this function even if they have an outstanding loan. The Happy Home Paradise DLC is full of new content that dives deeper into the customization aspect of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Once players complete every milestone in their career, they can continue to update facilities, remodel homes, and offer new designs to visiting clients. This gives players a lot of content to discover and play through. When combined with the 2.0 update, the Happy Home Paradise DLC offers players a variety of new mechanics to unlock and use both at the resort and on their own island. Each new feature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 and Happy Home Paradise adds to the players' overall experience by creating new customization options and different areas to explore.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 and Happy Home Paradise DLC are available now for Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided with a digital Nintendo Switch download code for the purpose of this review.