Nintendo celebrates Animal Crossing’s one year anniversary with a bang. Yes, one whole year!
Animal Crossing: New Horizons. (Nintendo)
A new update to celebrate the one year anniversary of Animal Crossing: New Horizons brings new features to the game that look as adorable as ever.
Designers will be happy to hear the Custom Design app on the Nook phone is getting an upgrade, with an expanded 50 slots for designs and the ability to create umbrellas, small flags and more to truly customise your island.
This has been a much requested addition to the game, considering over 12 million custom designs have been uploaded to the Custom Design portal over the past year.
An Island Tour Creator is also being launched that will allow players to use screenshots and footage captured in the game to create a trailer for their island to share online. The feature is web-based and available for a limited time only.
Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s Island Tour Creator. (Nintendo)
More seasonal items will come to the game like April Fool’s Day joke items (yes, there’s a whoopee cushion) and prom night fashion items.
Lastly, the dreaded Bunny Day is making a return from last year. The event was widely criticised for overloading islands with coloured eggs used to craft various pastel-coloured Easter items.
The free update will launch on 18 March.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons now has the best first year sales of any Nintendo game in Europe, with more than 7 million copies sold across the continent since the game’s release on 20 March 2020.
That means the game is owned by a third of Switch owners across Europe.
In the US, meanwhile, special Sanrio card packs are available in Target stores. Players can scan the amiibo cards to invite special Sanrio inspired characters, like Hello Kitty, to their island along with specially themed items and furniture.
Nintendo recently added Mario-themed items to the game to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario series. Players have since got creative using warp pipes, flags and blocks to create Mario levels within the game.
Build-A-Bear Workshop are also collaborating with Nintendo on an Animal Crossing collection, with more details coming soon.
