Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ DLC Happy Home Paradise is set to come out on November 5 for $24.99. However, the DLC could be acquired along with Nintendo’s new Switch Online + Expansion Pack. At $49.99 a year for individual plans and $79.99 for family plans, though, these subscriptions are significantly costlier than the original Switch Online options. This begs the question as to whether or not the Happy Home Paradise DLC makes these new subscription plans worth the price.
The Happy Home Paradise DLC will bring tons of new content to New Horizons. The DLC will allow players to join Lottie’s Paradise Planning team to design dream vacation homes for villagers. Players will get to use a variety of new design options and have plenty of new NPCs to interact with on both the vacation islands and players’ personal islands. The enormity of the update has made it an enticing deal for Nintendo to tag along to their new Switch Online subscription plans, which will also include access to N64 and SEGA games.
A major reason why Happy Home Paradise makes the new Switch Online + Expansion Pack plan worth the cost is the sheer size of the DLC. Happy Home Paradise almost acts as a second Animal Crossing game within New Horizons, as it offers players a series of islands to decorate and villagers to help and befriend just like in the regular game. Because players could receive this DLC alongside old N64 and SEGA titles with the Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, it would be similar to receiving a whole catalog of games for around the price of just one new title.
Nintendo’s Switch Online + Expansion Pack Is Worth It With The Happy Home Paradise DLC
Another thing to consider is that the Switch Online + Expansion Pack may set a precedent for Nintendo to continue offering DLC content in the future. Because Nintendo is marketing their premium subscriptions based on the inclusion of the Animal Crossing DLC and a growing catalog of games from the N64 and SEGA Genesis on Switch, the company may continue to keep including DLCs and updates to other games in the future as a perk of the more expensive subscription. Even if future expansion plans continue to only cover future Animal Crossing DLCs, it would still be worth it, as New Horizons’ upcoming version 2.0 update will be the game’s last free major update.
Switch owners can also sign up for the family plan and save themselves money with an Expansion Pack subscription by splitting up the price. Currently, the base-level Switch Online plan costs $20 a year. Though the Switch Online + Expansion Pack family plan costs $79.99, up to eight players can join it. If the costs are split between all the users, then everyone on the family plan could spend less than $10 per year to get access to Happy Home Paradise and the other benefits of the new plan.
Both the Happy Home Paradise DLC and the new Switch Online + Expansion Pack offer tons of new content and features to Switch players. With the two brought together in Nintendo’s packaged deal, they very much become worth the cost. The Happy Home Paradise DLC and Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ version 2.0 update are set to come out November 5.