Animal Crossing New Horizons Brewster
Image: Nintendo Life

Alright, we're FINALLY getting Brewster and The Roost in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, after what feels like years of people asking. So, we're all totally satisfied and content now, right?

Of course not. Brewster was just the beginning. There are still plenty more features that people would love to see in New Horizons, and many of them come from New Leaf, the previous game. We've covered the missing/requested features before — in celebration of the game's first birthday, and even as far back as April 2020, less than a month after launch — and, annoyingly, a lot of the things we wanted to see back then are still not in the game.

So... what else would we like to see in New Horizons? What would make us come back to our neglected islands? And what are we still harping on about, almost two years from the release? Let's get into it...

Brewster's Roost Upgrades

We know we're getting The Roost, but we don't know what that means yet. The bird-run café will be inside the Museum, next to the art gallery, but will it be the same as New Leaf? In the 3DS Animal Crossing, you could work at the café after ordering coffee a few times, and then you'd take part in a little minigame, where you would serve coffee to the island residents. It was a bit of a tricky game, that required use of a guide if you wanted to get it right — but players would no doubt love to have it in the game.

There was also the option to watch concerts with KK Slider in Wild World and City Folk, although New Horizons has instead put KK Slider in the plaza. What if it rains, though? Poor, soggy KK.

But what if we dreamed a little bigger? How about something new in the café? Maybe Brewster could hold seminars, or TED Talks, or... poetry nights. Maybe the café could turn into a bar at night (highly unlikely, given Nintendo's family-friendly vibes). Perhaps, given The Roost's new location, there could be some kind of tie-in with the Museum itself!

Or, how about...

Gyroids

GYROIDS. The Roost used to be closely tied to Gyroids, with Brewster offering storage, displaying them in the café, and even having his own Gyroid. Could the addition of The Roost mean the return of everyone's favourite wiggly bois? We sure hope so.

Gyroids, back in the day, were haunting little statues that you could dig up, and each one made a different noise when you "activated" them. In older games, they would sort of... sing along, kinda, to whatever music you had playing. Imagine setting them up around KK Slider in the plaza on Saturdays!

Resetti, Gracie, Dr. Shrunk, Wendell and Other Special Characters

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mr Resetti
Image: Nintendo Life

Past games have included a slew of characters, but most of them were rolled into Isabelle or Tom Nook in New Horizons. We know Mr Resetti is lurking, of course, since he runs the rescue service and he's got a little statue in the game, but... it's not the same.

New Horizons just doesn't have quite as many visitors as before. How about fashion-focused giraffe Gracie, or the horrifying blank-faced cat, Blanca? Perhaps we could meet the Happy Home Academy employees, like Digby, Lyle, and Lottie, to bribe them for more HHA points? Or Katrina, the Fortune Teller, Dr Shrunk, the weird psychiatrist, Wendell the pattern-selling walrus, Pete, Phyllis, and Pelly the post office workers, Booker and Copper the cops, Harriet the hairstylist, or even... Joan, the turnip-selling boar who has been replaced by Daisy Mae? WHAT HAPPENED TO JOAN, NINTENDO?!

Most of all, though — we'd love to see Kapp'n. Not just because we love the old chap, but because his appearance at the pier would mean the potential to get whisked away on a new adventure.

We'd swap a hundred Zipper T. Bunnies for one glimpse of our old pals.

More Multiplayer Activities & Minigames

Tortimer Island
Image: Nintendo

It's lovely to be able to visit the islands of our far-off pals during this pandemic, but LORDY does it feel like pulling teeth to get through the myriad loading screens. Nintendo's online multiplayer has never really been its strength, and the company seems to prioritise its cutesy in-universe loading animations and long-winded conversations with Orville more than it does speed, which we can understand.

But at the end of the day, it would be nice to have more things to do with said pals. Currently, we're pretty limited to visiting each other's islands in online play, and that's only fun for a while. We'd love to have some experiences, adventures, and games to do as a pair, or a group.

Tortimer Island, from Animal Crossing: New Leaf, was pretty fun, albeit limited to that one tiny island — but you could easily rope in a few buddies to help you catch all those lucrative fish and bugs, which made money-making a much more pleasant experience.

The May Day maze event featuring the return of Rover was one of our favourite events so far (although you lot preferred Halloween and Toy Day), so any expansion on that theme would be very welcome.

Batch Crafting

Crafting Fish Bait Animal Crossing New Horizons
Image: Nintendo Life

Please. Please. We've said our piece on this enough times already.

This also goes for buying things — let us buy all the accessories without having to buy them one-by-one in the dressing room!

Reduced Repetition

"You caught a sea bass! No, wait — it's at least a C+!"
"You caught a sea bass! No, wait — it's at least a C+!"
"You caught a sea bass! No, wait — it's at least a C+!"

Just throw us in the sea to drown already, Nintendo. It wouldn't be too tricky to just add in a few more options for the dialogue we're going to be seeing A LOT, and the same goes for the mystery islands — a few more island types wouldn't go amiss, especially when the tickets are expensive to buy and so time-consuming to use.

Also, let's pep up the villagers a little, eh? We're a bit tired of hearing that one story about the Maglevs in Love soap opera.

More Critters to Catch

Having spent almost two years catching fish bugs and, eventually, deep-sea creatures, many players will now have completed their Critterpedia and caught absolutely every critter in the game. There's not much challenge any more, once you've completed the Museum, and when Diving was added, it gave us something new to do for a while — could it be possible to add another new way of catching creatures to the game?

As we've described before, you could have a new, special NPC come to town once you've filled in the Critterpedia, much like Professor Oak in the Pokémon games, and tell you all about the rare, legendary, or even mythical creatures that need catching. Or, perhaps, a new type of foliage or flower that attracts new insects, or a new item that lets you discover things you couldn't see before.

And if we're getting really pie-in-the-sky about it... how about a new place to go, filled with rare and exotic bugs and fish?? Give us a good reason to own the bug net and fishing rod again!

The Ability to Change the Resident Representative

Resident Representative
Image: Nintendo Life

It might have taken a while, but Nintendo did eventually update the game to make it possible to transfer your island to a new Switch using the special Island Transfer Tool. You can also move individual players to other islands if they're not the island representative, but at present it's still not possible to switch an island's Resident Rep.

The Resident Rep has the ability to build new structures, move existing ones, pay off the mortgage, and generally make decisions for the town. Anyone you share the island with will be unable to do those things without the help of the Rep.

If you have kids, partners who don't play the game any more, or roommates you don't live with any more, this gets to be an issue after a while. Why not give us a bit more freedom?

A More Useful Isabelle

Isabelle.900x

Listen, Iz, we love you, but... if you're going to make us listen to your morning bulletins every day, please at least give us useful information. Is Redd in town? Does Gulliver need our help? Just tell us what we actually want to know!

More Furniture

Rococo
Come back to us, Rococo

We've got pretty much everything we ever wanted. But collecting furniture is part of the reason we play Animal Crossing... so would it be okay to ask for just a little bit more? Some of us dream of the return of the Rococo series, the Alpine Series, the Minimalist Series... and most of us look at Pocket Camp's WEALTH of furniture (that you can interact with!) with envy.

The seasonal crafting recipes, Nook Shopping options, and the occasional brand partnership (like the Sanrio collection) are welcome additions, but the slow trickle of non-themed furniture is just too much to bear.

Unbreakable Tools

What more can we say? It's extremely frustrating to have to craft multiple tools every day. Even Minecraft has a repair feature. Shouldn't Golden Tools be unbreakable, anyway?

Shop Upgrades & New Shops

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Remember this?

We'd love to revitalise our little island a bit more, and since Kicks was rolled into the Able Sisters, and Leif's shop has been reduced to naught but a cart, we're wondering what else we could get. Remember the hairdresser/stylist in New Leaf? Sure, we can do that ourselves now, but it's not quite the same. Or how about Dr Shrunk's weird nightclub?

We'd have to rejig our perfectly laid-out town, but it would be worth it for more things to spend our money on, after paying off the mortgage.

Cooking?

We already have crafting... how about a little cooking minigame? Give us something to do with all the fruits, fish, and nuts we have, other than selling them, crafting with them, and accidentally eating them and needing to use the toilet, just like real life.

More Life

This one is a general one, and touches on a lot of things we've already said, but... the thing we love about Animal Crossing is that it felt like a little life. New Horizons is very focused on the decoration aspect, which is a good thing, but that means its life is a little lacking.

Villagers seem a little more uninteresting, and there just aren't as many things to do, or interact with. No one visits your house any more uninvited (although maybe that's a good thing). Because the crafting, hairstyles, and customisation is all done by you now, there are fewer reasons to hang out around town, or with other characters. Even though you're no longer the mayor of the whole town, you actually talk to people less. It's a very solitary life.

Maybe The Roost will change that... or maybe it won't.

A Reason To Come Back

A lot of us don't really know what we want, specifically — we're just hoping for a reason to come back to the game, after abandoning it months ago for one reason or another.

Whether that's a massive upgrade, a game-changing addition, or just the "more life" that we talked about above, what we would love to see is something that pulls us back in. Brewster alone sadly won't cut it for many.

We can only hope.

What would you like to see in the ACNH update Direct? (Pick up to three!)

(You can select up to 3 answers)

Are you still playing Animal Crossing on Switch? Would any of the above bring you back to the game? Let us know in the comments below!


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