So Are We Getting a New Animal Crossing Any Time Soon?

by Doc – Owner, Founder, Was Not All That Impressed With New Horizons, and Considers it the Worst Animal Crossing Game Besides the Alarm Clock on the DSi eShop

Nintendo is a company that loves sequels, and they’ve made their bones off of putting a “2” or a “New” or a “Super” on the name of a new iteration and selling it as a semi-new thing. Super Nintendo. New Nintendo 3DS XL. New Super Luigi U Deluxe. Super Smash Bros Melee 2.

(Okay, I made that last one up, but c’mon Nintendo…)

As of late, though, Ninty’s policy seems to be introducing a new game, doing some paid DLC for it and then dropping support for games within 2-3 years after their initial release. Smash Ultimate, console-seller that it was, had all its DLC out within 3 years of release, and that was only delayed by COVID a year into the cycle. Splatoon 2 (which I insist should have been called “Splat2n”) got support for two years. Ditto for Splatoon 3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons had a few updates for the next year and then got its last one in late 2021… and then a 3.0 update five years later?

New Horizons is clearly a break in the cycle. This leads me to ask: are we actually getting a Switch 2 Animal Crossing or will we just be getting a microwaved New Horizons? Nintendo has plenty of time to put a new one together if they so choose, but this new update sure reads to me like they choose not to. Given the install base of almost 50 million units for New Horizons and the extremely large amiibo potential for it (probably rivaling Smash Bros in terms of appeal and depth of sales potential) it’d make more sense from a financial perspective to keep putting out DLCs for the existing install base and just making the money on amiibo cards. Or, hell, a new paid DLC package.

I’m not saying I want that, or that we’re never going to get another Animal Crossing. I’d prefer an actually good Animal Crossing game. But Nintendo’s strategy seems to be to be using games for as long as they can get cash before moving to the next installment of the IP, and there’s clearly more juice to be squeezed from this turnip.