The Switch 2 May Give Animal Crossing Fans an Excuse to Revisit NH

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 4, 2025 13 Views 7 Min Read
The Switch 2 May Give Animal Crossing Fans an Excuse to Revisit NH



Animal Crossing has always been one of Nintendo’s more well-known series, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons took the franchise’s popularity to the next level. The hit Switch exclusive was released in 2020, right during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges its launch faced due to the outbreak, it became a global phenomenon. Animal Crossing: New Horizons gave players around the world a way to socialize with one another during a pandemic, and its easy-to-understand gameplay made the game more accessible to newcomers. It eventually sold over 44 million copies, far more than any other installment in the Animal Crossing franchise, and it became the second best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch, beating out the likes of Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘s momentum continued in the months after its release. Several free content updates for the game were released throughout 2020 and 2021, and it even received a paid expansion called Happy Home Paradise, which added new island customization options and gave players the ability to design homes for villagers on other islands. These days, though, Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ popularity has largely tapered off due to a lack of updates for the game and limited island progression systems. Although Nintendo hasn’t given fans much of a reason to return to New Horizons, this may soon change with the release of the upcoming Switch 2 thanks to one save-related reason.

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The Switch 2’s Launch Could Give Fans a Reason to Return to Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Only Lets Players Have One Island Per Nintendo Switch

Saves in Animal Crossing: New Horizons operate in an interesting manner. In most games, players are able to record their progress in multiple playthroughs and swap between saves with the click of a few buttons, but New Horizons does not work that way. Instead, the game limits local save functionality. When players create and build their own island in the game, they can only play on that same island unless they delete their progress entirely. To make matters worse, the save file for New Horizons is located not within a cartridge or a digital copy of the game, but rather within the Nintendo Switch’s files.

Even if an Animal Crossing fan buys a second copy of New Horizons (digitally or physically), they will not be able to start a fresh save with a new island unless they buy a second Switch. Players who share the same Switch with their family or friends can create their own characters in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but they must all share the same island as well. Some may say that this design choice fosters collaboration among friends, but in many people’s eyes, it just restricts player freedom and makes the game less enjoyable.

The Switch 2 May Allow Players to Have a Second Island Without Deleting Their Previous Saves

Being limited to one island/town per console has been a common issue with the Animal Crossing games, but it’s particularly disappointing in the case of New Horizons simply because the Switch is more expensive than many of Nintendo’s previous consoles. Most fans are probably not going to buy a second Nintendo Switch for $200-300 just to have a second island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. They may, however, buy a Switch 2 at some point.

Nintendo hasn’t revealed much information about the successor to the Nintendo Switch so far, but it did announce a few months ago that the console would be backwards compatible with the game library of the current Switch. While the specifics of this backwards compatibility have yet to be unveiled, it seems likely that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be playable on the Switch 2. Therefore, current Switch owners who buy Nintendo’s next system will be able to play on two entirely separate islands in New Horizons without having to delete their original saves. This may not be the perfect solution, but at least fans will have more of a reason to buy a next-gen Nintendo console over a second Switch.

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