Nintendo's E3 presentation failed to deliver any big news on Animal Crossing: New Horizons content, leaving many fans questioning the game's future. Its success during the COVID-19 pandemic managed to expand the Animal Crossing fanbase and attract new players to the Nintendo Switch console. Thankfully, with no news of a sequel and ACNH's popularity still intact, it appears that Nintendo will still be investing in future gaming content. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has many different events and features that could be expanded to enhance gameplay.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons improved upon many aspects of the series since its release with seasonal events like Bunny Day, Festivale, Wedding Season, Halloween, and Festive Season. Additionally, ACNH introduced terrain modification and crafting into the series. Despite these features, there is still more that could be added to the game as well as existing features that could be expanded on. Nintendo of America's president, Doug Bowser, assured fans that there would be new content coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
One of the simplest methods to introduce new activities would be adding cooking and food items into Animal Crossing New Horizons. By expanding on the existing crafting system and introducing a new category of item, players would receive a new, regular activity to participate in. This would also give Nintendo the opportunity to bring Animal Crossing's Brewster back, or allow players to run their own restaurant and trade food with fellow Villagers. Introducing craftable food items could also make island-grown fruits valuable for something other than Bells. Different Villagers with different personalities could prefer different foods or flavors, with craftable food working as another method for players to improve their relationships with Villagers.
Nintendo's Animal Crossing Can Turn Villagers Into Competitors
Two of Animal Crossing's most defining features are its Villagers and the act of decorating houses and islands. Players in Animal Crossing: New Horizons spend hours hunting their desired Villagers, with some Villagers being more popular than others. Nintendo could take advantage of that popularity, and position Villagers as a force of competition for decorating. ACNH already has a system for judging based on decorations through the Happy Home Academy. Currently, Happy Home Academy rates everyone on individual islands based on their decorations, with the results only being shared through letters and vague dialogue through conversations with neighbors. Turning the act of decorating into a competition with players' neighbors will encourage them to improve their current designs and swap out Villagers for new challenges. Rewarding the best decorated house on the island with prizes will also give incentive to dive back into core mechanics of the game.
Another feature that would be welcome in the ACNH community is the ability to build up to higher levels of each island and expand building space as a whole. Enabling increased height would allow players to take more advantage of island space, and utilize more decorations and designs that would otherwise be unachievable. Animal Crossing: New Horizons' first anniversary has come and gone, and has only continued to gain more items and recipes since its release. With new design choices available to players, Nintendo could also look into making vendors more accessible to players. Shifting visiting vendors and merchants into permanent additions on player islands expands the buildings available to players, and characters such as Redd and Kicks could do well with a thrift store or shoe store on the island.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons expanded on many features already existing in the Animal Crossing series, but it could still enhance some key aspects of its gameplay to further improve players' experiences. Introducing new craftable food items, creating decoration competitions between Villagers and players, expanding available space to build on the island, and enabling traveling vendors to become permanent additions to player islands are all methods Nintendo could use to update ACNH. While Nintendo has yet to release any information about the impending updates, it looks as though Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans will be receiving some sort of content this year.