Dataminer Ninji has discovered a whole host of new content hiding in the deepest, darkest recesses of Animal Crossing: New Horizons' code, some of which could potentially point to upcoming features.
A list of the exciting new features appears below (thanks, Nintendo Everything), but be warned – while not all of these elements may actually make it into the final game, there's the potential you could have some of your enjoyment ruined by reading on – so do so at your own risk.
Still here? OK, let's begin.
- Two extra museum upgrades are mentioned
- All three house levels (after the tent) appear to contain an art section
- Two new stand-alone buildings are mentioned: the museum shop, and the museum cafe – the latter of which incorporates a Gyroid section
- Redd appears to have a ship which will dock on the ‘secret beach’ at the north of the island
- The ‘fake art’ mechanic will make a return
- The code that pops up a “select an item” box (to gift a villager, to sell, to swap a fish out for, and so on) has a “cTunekichi” (Redd) option – more evidence that he's perhaps coming back
- Bushes are mentioned: azalea, hibiscus, holly, hydrangea, camellia, osmanthus (although those might change; the list actually changed between version 1.0.0 and 1.1.4)
- Vegetables which can be grown are mentioned: tomato, wheat, sugar cane, potato, carrot, pumpkin
- Update 1.0.0 has a file for a “Seafood” Critterpedia page that’s supposed to contain 33 items – the only one actually in the released game is the manila clam
- There’s a third Nook’s Cranny upgrade referenced
- Swimming is mentioned; diving will allow you to obtain fish (a different set from fishing) and seaweed – there’s a portion of the save file reserved to store them already
- There are unused shopping interfaces in the game: ‘cGardening’, ‘cMuseum’ (possibly the aforementioned museum shop), ‘cRealEstate’, ‘cGallery’
- There’s a function that stores a ‘play report’ (Nintendo’s aggregate stats on gameplay) with three variants: get_recipe_diy, get_recipe_clothing, get_recipe_cooking – only the DIY one is actually ever used, so the other two might be in the plans
- Some mentions of stuff here have been removed from 1.1 onwards; the list mentioning ‘FlowerBush’ and vegetable names has been modified to list ‘FlBu, V0, V1, V2, …’ instead, one mention of Redd’s shop has gone from ‘TsunekichiShop’ to ‘TShop’ – ‘TShop’ is in what seems to be a list of doors that buildings can have
- Since 1.1 they’ve added ‘WOffice’ as well, which isn’t actually used yet
- There’s a list of types for items where every type is used in the game, except for “Art” and “Dishes"
Phew! It's worth stressing a second time that a lot of the stuff mentioned here may never happen in the game and could simply be left-over code for features that won't be used, but at least some of it has a good chance of coming to pass. Is there a feature in there you're particularly excited about? Let us know with a comment.
[source nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 86
Oh hey. Ninji. That's the NSMBW Dude. I used to chat with him.
Animal Crossing..... the only game series I've played daily for at least a month and it will go on for quite a few more.
That’s a good set of features there. Yeah, I would have preferred if a lot of this stuff from previous games was implemented at launch but better late than never.
Yes. Please. All of this.
Well at least there's a good chance that Redd will be making a return. A museum cafe would be cool.
Of all of those, I think the one that really should be there is the swimming and diving. How can they have an island game without swimming and diving? That's like having a racing game that doesnt allow a second player...
A lot of these make sense, they were major features in ACNL.
I can't believe I forgot that bushes were a thing, they were great.
They make more sense when you consider the upcoming Leif event, the gardening sloth.
I can't help but wonder if this has something to do with why the Official Guide for Animal Crossing: New Horizons by Future Press got pushed back to the end of April. Looking at it from a "glass half full" perspective, perhaps they had to wait until after an imminent announcement of these rumored features so as not to spoil all of them. Then again, from a "glass half empty" standpoint, if it doesn't include such DLC it would mean your brand new guide will be out of date the day it ships to you.
Sounds good to me. The museum upgrades with Redd and the Gyroids (and Brewster) are 100% mandatory.
Being able to have actual cooking recipes sounds exciting too!
Sounds like Nintendo has already laid the groundwork for some really interesting updates for quite a while.
Can we please not datamine everything and be surprised by things like the developers intended for once?
I sure hope Redd doesn't arrive at the back of the island. I just finished renovating that entire area and it's blocked off.
@nessisonett but this is a desert island escape, I think it makes sense that things become available in a staggered way in this game while you build your new island community, it would feel weird to me to be able to do everything right away.
@ImagineerNik Opposite for me. I made a path through my cliffs to the little beach at the back so I'd love it to actually have a use, haha.
@LavaTwilight I wouldn't swim or dive if I lived on an island in real life. I live ten mins walk from the beach but never go because I hate it.
@CairiB Not exactly, there’s a natural progression in the base game anyway so surely this could have been implemented in the same way? It’s not as if you can only swim in a desert island until you build a museum.
Swimming where there are clearly sharks, no thank you!
@nessisonett true, I was meaning more the upgrades to buildings etc
Really exciting stuff but what if a lot of it was stuff they tried out but decided not to use at all? Most Nintendo AAA games are fully cooked on release. Or maybe they’re approaching it like Splatoon 2–that game had a pretty awesome timetable of gradual releases (arenas, gear) before maxing out.
It seems this development team has become accustomed to their Splatoon style of making a game; release an unfinished game, because Nintendo needs something out on the market, and patch in the rest later. I can't say I'm a fan.
@RainbowGazelle
I mean, it's a way of getting players to come back to the game, and ease them into something that they may continue to play for a long time by limiting activity at the start as to not overwhelm them.
I can't necessarily fault them for this as HD software development is considerably more challenging.
I mean, this all sounds great... But I hope they increase the island size then (maybe add a second one to the left or right, connected with a bridge) since I've already planned and terraformed every inch and placing more buildings would be troublesome as it is...
I smell a Direct... or maybe that's just freshly baked cookies... either way, smells good.
@BenAV I noticed this on your island and thought it was a good idea. Also liked the food box on the beach with the outfit haha.
All of these features sound great. I really like the idea of bushes as I want my island to be full of nature.
@nessisonett,
More than enough stuff to do at launch, and nice to get things later and look forward to them.
@RainbowGazelle,
Not the case with this though, as I said more than enough stuff to begin with.
@RainbowGazelle I've already played the game more than any other title so I strongly disagree with the statement that this game is unfinished. For instance, I played Link's awakening and I loved it, but it was over in 20 hours. I've played New Horizons for 370 hours and I'm still not "finished". Considering it took them 7 years to develop the game and that release was pushed back, we'd still be waiting for release for quite a while if all those things listed were to be implemented at launch.
@RainbowGazelle lol gtfoh. The base game is huge even without this stuff
Love the code potential for diving as a "spear fishers" to collect things. Hopefully in tune with that will be an update to allow POV to pan left<>right more in pitch to screen shot the sunsets over the water.
@Yosher It was a lot easier for you to not click on this article than it is for everyone else to change their interests for you
@RupeeClock Yeah we should be getting an announcement for that soon right? Earth day is only two days away.
Is this real? If so I will be very excited. But I do wish Nintendo can make a lot more animals to live on our island. And ability to change to Southern Hemisphere or more islands.
@RainbowGazelle I'd rather this and have he game now rather than waiting for a few more months for it to be 'finished'.
The game is essentially finished and entirely playable as is. Adding more features later is fine by me
So, anyone with a 'completed' 5-star rating island, is screwed?
I like the game but it it’s not much of an upgrade from New Leaf. It really needs these additions, and some quality of life updates. You get your $60 worth of play time for sure, but there isn’t $60 worth of content. New Leaf costs almost half that and there was more content.
Please allow swimming and diving and being able 2 eat the cakes etc its gonna b awesome then
And no mention of being able to craft the same item multiple times at once smh
I always wondered why that dumb secret beach was even a thing. It serves no purpose. But being able to collect more things would drastically increase my personal enjoyment. I like filling out th critterpedia
This is all lies...
Tomatoes are a fruit
I'm noticing more and more people making bad faith/dishonest arguments that games that add additional content or DLC were unfinished upon launch or are cutting out vital parts of the game to fleece gamers. This seems purely based on initial, and in some cases, continued practices of select publishers. Its dumb in my opinion and frustrating to read because its void of logic.
A game based on slowly having access to more activities is 'unfinished' because you cant do all the things from day one? It lacks logic. It has taken me 180 hours to see the credits and my island still looks like trash. These new features if they materialise will be welcomed, but they are additions not necessities.
@RainbowGazelle
Animal Crossing is not an unfinished game.
@Yorumi I appreciate that but I have two issues. A franchise can have features from the beginning for several of its sequels and then remove the feature. That in itself is not an indication that the game is unfinished. That brings me to the second point: what is new in the game. Terraforming and adding furniture to the outside are IMO massive new features that allow for loads of new possibilities. The terraforming itself, I can only imagine took a lot of work to implement. So its not as if they refreshed the graphics and that's it.
To want publishers to be bold and add new mechanics but also expect everything that came before be transferred over I think is unrealistic. TO then declare it as publishers conning the fan base in some way or that its a sign of rushing/laziness seems to ignore all the moving parts.
@Yorumi if it was in the game but not accessible until certain dates, why is that preferable? I personally wouldn’t want to chew through all the content right at the start, but I don’t understand why it has to be there on day 1.
I was disappointed to find out they removed swimming. Hopefully it makes a full comeback
All the stuff on this list are really exciting things. If even a fraction of them show up in future updates that's make an already fun game even better. I was really hoping for bushes to return especially, so seeing them mentioned in the code like this has me excited. I've even been keeping them in mind while thinking about what I want to do with my island.
To the people dumping on this, we aren't talking about a game where they released a base bones game with half the content and then changed extra after the fact to add only SOME of that content back. They released what could be considered a finished game and announced ahead of time that extra stuff and seasonal events would be updated in for FREE over time. We knew they were doing this going in. It's also very obviously (at least to me) part of their strategy to keep time travelers from playing for two weeks and being done.
Was hoping cafe could be a separate building you can add and liefs shop too
Should there be a spoilers warning at the top of this article? I don't particularly care, but I'm sure plenty of AC fans would rather wait for the updates to roll out when Nintendo wants them to.
The small beach in the north being used by Redd in a ship....sounds perfect. We were speculating forever as to why that's there.
Now if only we could find a way to bring back Capp'n.
@Crockin,
It should be there from day one because we are all entitled to it, and we will stamp our little feet and cross our arms until Nintendo do the right thing, as it was in other previous games.
The fact this new game had tonnes of stuff to do, even more if you wan't to decorate your island from top to bottom using the new Terraforming features, some people will never be happy no matter what.
@DonSerrot,
Totally wrong, they should have put all the seasonal events in from the start, so lazy gamers can time travel and get all the specific items early.
I mean the game is hardly punishing people for time traveling in the first place, at least Nintendo can issue season specific festivals and events at the appropriate time to leave the game with some mystery.
I have been wondering about Redd, and why I saw Blather's sister. The art and coffee were big parts of the series. Why they weren't in there at the start boggles me.
Isn't tanukichi Tom Nook? that's what my wife who plays it in Japanese calls him.
Not a surprising move from this dev team with how well done the slow implementation of game modes, maps, weapons and gear was with splatoon
Two new stand-alone buildings are mentioned
Great!! I have a huge empty land that I don't know what to fill it with now.
I like the stuff mentioned, but what about the QoL updates? rtaher have those first.
@PorllM That's not the point. Point is, this stuff is now out in the open, people will be talking about it. I didn't read anything in the article, but I'm very sure I'll find out some of this stuff before long because people don't see this stuff as spoiler worthy and will just freely talk about it, still spoiling those who do not wish to know.
No need to be mean about it.
@Susurrus Yes, Tanukichi is Tom Nook, but Redd's Japanese name is a bit similar.
Redd's Japanese name is Tsunekichi (romanized as Tunekichi in the data), from "kitsune" since he is actually a kitsune like Tom Nook is actually a tanuki.
I hate data mining like just let it be a surprise. People are always so extra with these games
@GinHunter ah thanks for the clarification
@Yosher the last thing I wanted to be is mean and I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say anything in my comment was mean, but I take your point and apologise for coming across that way.
My point was just that a lot of people love to learn about this stuff and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you don’t want to know, there’s nothing wrong with that either. But they obviously aren’t gonna to stop for you and that would be crazy to expect.
So your best option is to avoid any posts or threads on the topic, which is luckily, extremely easy. A lot easier than these people no longer doing it.
I hope that makes a little more sense
@PorllM It's not quite as easy as you might think though when people talk about these kinds of things out in the open. It's easy not to click on links, but if your eyes glance over something spoiler-ridden then the proverbial damage is done pretty quickly.
I'm glad people who are interested in this stuff can find out about things early but it's also harder for developers to hide fun future updates and properly surprise their fanbases with this stuff, and that just kinda makes me sad. Like, for instance, when Ryu was leaked for Smash 4, that put an incredible damper on his actual announcement and the hype just wasn't nearly as big as it would have been otherwise.
Datamining stuff for beta elements and such I do find incredibly interesting though so this whole thing is a two-sided coin for me. I just hope I'll be able to avoid all this information until it's revealed but I don't think I'll be able to.
@Yosher I don’t think you’re trying that hard to avoid spoilers if you’re clicking on these lol.
a third nook cranny's upgrade? sounds good. hopefully there will be a fourth. if there are upgrades to the museum, i hope to see them soon.
hopefully, the ability to modify the beach will appear. i would like to be able to pick where the rivers start and end. also being able to relocate the piers would be nice.
i have so many ideas, but more construction permits are needed. nook also should allow us to purchase D.I.Y. recipes for bridges and slopes. there should also be a way to change or customize certain aspects of them after they are built instead of having to tear them down and rebuild them for if we want to make changes to them...
@Strictlystyles
Oh poor you
I just want swimming back and more qr code space ;-; that's all I need -the rest can come but please let it be slow because all it once would be too overwhelming and I'm all for good more content but too much of it -afraid it'll kill the game.
@Yorumi Lol well yea obviously they are capitalists, but I would hardly call the base game incomplete. I guess I would feel the same way if like Mario odyssey released with only 3-4 kingdoms. Nothing has been shorted here, so that’s why I find perspective off base. Not that there isn’t some other trickery around this game and selling more switches, but I see nothing wrong with the slow drip content roll out
@Yorumi I get what you are saying, but I just don’t think that’s the case here. Obviously there’s loads more content on the way, but the base game is huge and has more actual gameplay content than any previous AC by a wide margin. This argument has already been done to death, so I’ll leave it there, but this game so far is massive and well worth the price of admission
@Yosher don't read them then
@nessisonett In a game like Animal Crossing in which the content is drip feeded to you.... I prefer this kind of updates which were planned all along .. but gives people the same sense of discovery so Time Travelers don't spoil everything.....
I guess that even for them is something really cool since they see new content from a game that they played differently
Unfortunately no gay sex stuff was uncovered.
Typical Nintendo, living in the past.
i like the sound of all of this, lots of features that were already in New Leaf but mysteriously absent . .
really hoping they bring back the tropical fruits that were added to NL as well. feels weird to have a "tropical island getaway" and us go back to just the standard fruits from the series and get rid of the fun additions of mangos, bananas, lychees, durians, persimmons
i loved those.
And yet still no froggy chair.
There we go! This seems like what could make the FULL game! Awesome! NH feels like it's missing something, with lots of observation.
BOTW and STRANDED SAILS combined.....
Please say that the vegetables are real. I'd probably actually buy the game then, and just treat it as a harvest moon style thing.
@RupeeClock Fair enough, but previous Animal Crossing games did manage that without the need to download the rest of the game.
@johnvboy Well, I've pretty much run out. @Clabeux I'm glad you're getting a lot more out of it, but I'm definitely going to struggle to get that many hours out of it as it stands.
@Crockin I personally don't think it's huge. Less to do than New Leaf, with a higher price tag.
@Archius9 Oh, I agree, it's entirely playable. But it's lacking in content.
@westman98 Then why are they patching it to include missing content?
Look guys, I totally get why they've done it the way they have, and I suppose it's less egregious in Animal Crossing because you'd have to wait for the date to roll round to get this stuff anyway, but it's a severely worrying trend in the industry, and I'm saddened to see Nintendo do it too.
@RainbowGazelle
Content updates != Missing features
Feels like some of ya'll are still in 2005 when the games-as-a-service model didn't exist.
Almost all games nowadays will launch with X content at launch and eventually get Y more content through free updates. Just because content X doesn't literally include everything from prior games in the series doesn't mean content X is lacking.
I like the sound of basically all of this! Especially the possibility of being able to grow some veggies! I'd love a mini-farming mechanic!
@Incarna If it was like in the older games where you couldn't tell it was fake until you gave it to Blathers, yeah it would not be a good thing.
But in New Leaf you could actually tell if it was fake or not by looking at it, such as the fake Mona Lisa's hands being in a different position or the fake Venus de Milo having long hair instead of short. I suspect and hope the mechanic in New Horizons will be more like that, since it's less frustrating.
@RainbowGazelle hahahaha your comments have not aged well
@Incarna "'Fake Art' ... NO. This is NOT a good thing."
I agree. The fake art was one of the less enjoyable "mini games" in New Leaf. Unless you were intimately familiar with famous works of art, or used a gameplay guide, then you had a 75% of getting ripped off. Not fun at all.
@Yorumi
You can be dissapointed in anything that dissapoints you. I'm just saying it shouldn't surprise people that games nowadays are releasing with free content update planned for the future. It's 2020, not 2005.
@Yorumi
Perhaps I should clarify a bit more.
You probably think developers utilize the games-as-a-service model rather than the traditional release model because they are rushing out "incomplete" games and then "completing" the incomplete games over time via free content updates over time.
What I'm saying is that developers aren't implementing the GAAS model because they are lazy and rushing - they are doing this because they believe it is a better way to keep people engaged with the same game over a long period of time. This is strategic, not a desperate move to scam consumers.
Of course, there are probably instances where developers have rushed out games under the guise of supporting the GAAS model (last year's Anthem is a prime example). I just don't think Animal Crossing New Horizons falls under that camp, and I'd say most would agree given it's excellent review scores and record-breaking success.
@Yorumi
If that's what you believe, then put your money where your mouth is and don't buy Animal Crossing (or sell if you already did buy it) and support the few games that have no free content updates, expansions, DLC, battle passes, microtransactions, loot boxes, amiibo support, etc.
some of the features and mechanic mentioned in this article like the inclusion of a Museum upgrade that add a Art Gallery and Crazy Redd with the return of the Fake Art mechanic was included in the Earth Day update, so probaby Brewster and his Café along with the Diving mechanic will be included in the next major update of the game.
@Yorumi bit late but as a collector I agree with you fully.
However, didn’t new leaf get a rerelease with all updates on the cartridge? It was called welcome amiibo I think. Let’s pray new horizons gets the same treatment, for future proving sake.
considering almost all or all features Ninji have found in the game, i believe in this year we gonna get all the features and mechanics hinted/found on the game data, so expect the Cooking mechanics /Dishes and Vegetables in a Fall update with the depth of the Crafting mechanics, around octobre/novembre, all the previous mechanics and aspect of the game found in Datamine have come to the game such as the Art Gallery/Swimming/Diving mechanics.
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