Animal Crossing has often been considered one of the largest video game franchises, but the Nintendo classic has been fading fast in recent years, leaving one to wonder if the games and franchise will ever revive its glory days. Animal Crossing has been a Nintendo staple since its first video game release in 2001 with Animal Forest, released internationally as Animal Crossing the following year. The most recent Nintendo Switch release, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, was just as successful in its first two years. However, as the game has aged and been practically abandoned by Nintendo, the series is quickly fading into the background.
Part of the charm in each new Animal Crossing entry is how the game takes a fresh twist on setting, from Wild World being in a remote village to New Leaf focusing on town life. In spite of these constant shifts, New Horizons hasn’t matched Animal Crossing: City Folk’s potential. While New Horizons intends for the player to embrace remote island life, once the island has been built up, the island premise becomes more stifling. In the COVID-19 pandemic's early months, ACNH offered a welcome and much-needed carefree, friendly atmosphere to escape to. Now, it’s not uncommon to hear of abandoned islands, as players have simply run out of things to do, making the fate of Animal Crossing quite uncertain.
Animal Crossing's Fate After New Horizons Is Full Of Uncertainty
After several updates, Nintendo finally announced it would no longer be updating content for New Horizons. However, the mobile Animal Crossing game, Pocket Camp, continues to receive content updates regularly, even receiving exclusive content to coincide with other Nintendo releases, such as Splatoon 3. Animal Crossing’s worst mistake isn’t lack of updates; New Horizons simply wasn’t set up for long-term play, even if players don’t utilize time-traveling features to complete the Critterpedia and Nook Mile goals. The seemingly sudden abandonment of New Horizons by Nintendo has sparked debate on whether a sequel is already in the works, but it’s also left a shadow looming over the Animal Crossing legacy.
What Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizon Sequel Needs
As bleak as Animal Crossing's fate may seem, there's no shortage of solutions Nintendo could implement to put New Horizons, and Animal Crossing as a whole, back on the map. One of the best solutions would be to launch a surprise New Horizons content update, with a handful of new Animal Crossing villager personalities, a new event, or even just allowing for more than one island per device. This would spark conversation around Animal Crossing again and elicit excitement the franchise has been missing for several months. There might be a plethora of reasons Nintendo could have for neglecting New Horizons, but as one of the most successful installments in the Animal Crossing series, it’s still undeniably strange.
Just one more content update could be extremely beneficial to re-igniting the passion and joy Animal Crossing has always been known for, especially if the next installment is currently being developed. Nintendo showing players it's still invested in Animal Crossing is vital to making the series big again. If Nintendo were working on a sequel for the Switch, it would be the first main series Animal Crossing game released on the same console. Certainly, an Animal Crossing where players become Nook employees or more crossovers between NIntendo franchises would be worth the wait, but by keeping fans in the dark, Nintendo might just be jeopardizing the entire series.
Source: Nintendo of America/YouTube