The new Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Direct has announced some of fans' most highly-requested game features, including cooking, farming, a storage expansion, and gyroids. Hopes were high for the Direct among Animal Crossing fan complaints that the game doesn't include enough gameplay, but the upcoming November update should go far in addressing players' concerns.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the first and only AC game on Nintendo Switch, expands the series with new features including the ability to place furniture outside, as well as crafting, designing, and more. However, the 2020 release also lacks a lot of series-staple features, with missing NPCs, gameplay, minigames, and items. This has been a point of contention for long-time AC players, with the game drawing criticism for being less authentic than previous games in the franchise. Players were hoping the Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct would address some of these problems, and it seems players won't be disappointed, with lots of new features and additions soon coming from Nintendo.
As well as announcing the return of characters including Brewster and Kapp'n, the Nintendo Direct highlighted lots of new gameplay features soon coming to the game. Players' home storage will be increased from 2,400 to 5,000 as part of home expansions, allowing fans even more room for their crafting materials and furniture. In addition, players can finally store items outside with an outdoor storage shed linked to their home. Cooking will also be arriving in ACNH, with fans able to make delicious dishes through DIY recipes. To aid in cooking, new growable food including tomatoes, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes, carrots, and more will be added. Another very welcome new addition is gyroids, which have previously been missing in the game aside from Lloid, who accepts donations for bridges and inclines, the number of which will also be increased. As in previous games, gyroids will make musical sounds, but this time will be "grown" underground using fragments.
Watch the Direct on YouTube here.
The new Animal Crossing: New Horizons update will go live on November 5, offering a host of other smaller features, including more fence types, an improved photo mode, the ability to decorating ceilings, new hairstyles, new reactions, and more. Returning NPCs including Brewster, Kapp'n, and Harriet will also be found on players' islands beginning next month. Nintendo has confirmed this will be the last substantial Animal Crossing: New Horizons update, which may be disappointing to some players, despite the size of the update.
Early reactions to the Animal Crossing update are positive, with many players both surprised and thrilled to see new farming items and the cooking ability added to the game. While Nintendo had previously confirmed that Animal Crossing's Brewster would be revealed during the Direct, most fans weren't expecting such a substantial game update. Player interest in ACNH has dropped since the game sky-rocketed to popularity last year, but the many new features the update will introduce are likely to welcome countless players back to the island adventure.
Source: YouTube/Nintendo