Animal Crossing has always been the polly pockets of video games for me, I enjoy the tiny creatures running around in what feels like a tiny town set in a tiny world. Since Nintendo finally talks more about Animal Crossing New Horizons I noticed a heavy focus on the word “deserted”.

In Animal Crossing New Horizons we are joining Tom Nook on his journey with a new business model. The greedy yet adorable Tanuki is now running a travel agency and with it we book our one way plane ticket to a deserted island – but how deserted will it be?

Goodbye Shopping Street?

The last big installment in the Animal Crossing franchise was New Leaf and this title featured a full-on shopping street with all the bells and whistles. Club LOL, a Gardening shop and more. Personally this is one part of the town I would always hang out multiple times a day and I enjoyed the interactions with the villagers when making my purchase.

The social aspect wasn’t the only appeal about having a town with stores, there was a major sense of accomplishment when upgrading to T&Ts Emporium Mega store, opening Club LOL and completing other tasks in the shopping part of the town.

Animal Crossing New Horizons will take place on a deserted island and no screenshots or gameplay footage revealed any indication that there will be any sort of shops or buildings next the villagers homes. Of course this can either mean Nintendo did not choose to share that part of the game yet, or the deserted island is actually really deserted and waiting for us to populate it with public projects and more.

But what about the Museum?

Another question I asked myself is the absence of the Museum, all Animal Crossing mainline games with the exception of Animal Crossing Forrest featured a Museum that added tons of gameplay – a grind at that but fun regardless. Digging up fossils, catching fish and bugs in order to donate them to the Museum really gave a meaning to do the daily chores in the game.

Do you think there will be a Museum in the New Horizons? What other method could Nintendo use to provide a meaningful experience to doing chores every day? Don’t get me wrong I enjoy fishing, mining, gardening and catching bugs a lot but the sense of accomplishment when completing the Museum is something very special that I hope will appear in some form or shape in the next game.

Crafting to the rescue!

My fear as well as hope may be with the new crafting system that Nintendo introduces in Animal Crossing New Horizons. For the first time in the series history players will be able to gather resources to craft any item they wish to own.

This diminishes the need of a store to buy items as you can simply make them yourself. It is safe to assume that you won’t have access to the full catalogue of furniture right at the beginning but it would remove that surprise feeling you get when you check T&T Mart in the morning to see what new items are on sale. Often you would be surprised with a rare piece of furniture or a piece you needed to finish your collection.

Animal Crossing NEW Horizons

New is part of Animal Crossing, Game Designer / Director Aya Kyogoku held an interesting presentation after the New Leaf launch where she elaborated on the importance of change. She mentioned that all Animal Crossing games have been commercially successful but with New Lead they felt they had to take the series further to keep players engadged. This is the main reason that the player were put into the position of a mayor. You can watch the full presentation below, its a great watch for any Animal Crossing fan!

So while Animal Crossing New Horizons looks already a lot different than previous games in the series, I don’t think we have anything to fear, the possible absence of a town or museum could essentially pave the road to something just as fun or even more fun. After all we will always have Animal Crossing New Leaf to play, a new game in the franchise should feel like an evolution not like a visually upgraded copy of the previous game.

This is something I think The Sims series has been lacking in, since The Sims 1 all follow ups have been almost identical to the previous installment with very little to no new ideas. While I personally love The Sims Games, I would be thrilled to see Maxis take the game to the next level.

Animal Crossing New Horizons will release on Nintendo Switch on March 20th, 2020. For more Animal Crossing related news, check out my dedicated Animal Crossing section!

Animal Crossing Merch

If you are still looking for the perfect Holiday Gift and/or would like to treat yourself to something special, check out these very limited Animal Crossing Themed Bell Bag of Goodies package!