Topic: Can Animal Crossing still reinvent itself?

Hello, for several entries now, I’ve been wondering whether Animal Crossing still has room for real evolution, not necessarily in terms of content, but in how the world is experienced and perceived. I haven’t played New Horizons, so maybe some of this has already been explored, but I keep imagining how much the experience could change with the addition of an -optional-, more dynamic camera, alongside the classic one.
Not just for aesthetics, but to give the game a more physical feel, with spaces designed to be truly explorable and new animations that make basic movement, like running or jumping more expressive and grounded.
In recent years, Nintendo has shown the courage to refresh many of its long running series, and I wonder if it’s finally time for Animal Crossing to evolve in that direction as well.
Do you think that’s a real possibility, or is the series’ charm tied precisely to its static nature?

Im not sure if changing the camera is the answer to reinvention. I personally think more could be done with online connectivity and making the game less about largely disconnected islands. Not entirely sure how that would look exactly but I'm sure Nintendo can land somewhere. Afterall I thought Mario Kart had hit it's peak with 8 and they've come out with something interesting again with World

The reason why Animal Crossing games don't have a dynamic camera has to do with the rendering techniques that the series utilizes. None of the buildings or trees are actually full models. They're half-models. It allows for the devs to save on resource allocation for the game, and allows for them to stack the game with more content as a result- or better graphics compared to what else is on the system. I don't think they need to change that, nor are they going to change that any time soon. The classic style of the world rolling is a charming part of the series, and I wouldn't want them to sacrifice it and become like any other game with a world that you can explore.

We don't really need full on jumping in Animal Crossing either frankly. There's nothing wrong with the ladders.

The thing with Animal Crossing is that it's a series with a specific charm, and doesn't need a full on reinvention. The formula was fine as is- and New Horizons really muddied things by focusing more on the decorating and doll-house functions over the life simulation aspect. I feel like the next game should bring back a fair balance between life-sim and dollhouse, like the previous entries in the series. There should be more consequences for not playing the game. There should be more prep for the holidays that's actually meaningful and not just decorating the town. There should be more things to sink bells into, and more of a reason to spend money.

I hope the next entry of the series is less of a reinvention of conventions, and moreso an expansion on the foundations New Horizons laid. Keep all the decorating aspects that they brought in with New Horizons, but incorporate more things from previous games in the series- along with New Leaf's approach to content. That would make the ultimate Animal Crossing experience imo.

I also could see them taking the approach of combining Happy Home Designer into the main series, where you have a shopping area where you build and decorate the shops yourself or something. Either that, or they'll let you own your own shop and sell things probably. Adding onto the formula and expanding it is how the series should evolve. Not rewriting everything and starting anew with something that isn't remotely close to the appeal that the series has in the first place. We don't need a BotW style game for Animal Crossing.

@skywake Ehhh, I kinda wouldn't enjoy it if they made the new Animal Crossing game multiplayer centric. It'll lose a lot of appeal to me, given that I play these games by myself as a single player. A lot of people tend to do that. I also just can't see an Open World Animal Crossing working, since these games are built around you arriving to a town- or in New Horizon's case an island, and making your home there. An Open World would be fruitless when the game itself is already effectively Open World, given the lack of a linear story and the choice of progression that you're given.

@Ultra128
I would like to see next Animal Crossing take direction from Fantasy Life I with Full 3D world and quick Terraforming.
And it must have No villagers moving out by themselves rules from ACNH, more interactable furnitures, more customization for characters and villagers, choose / change biome for the island, Time Travel make it easy without penalty, less yada yada conversation, faster loading time, larger amount of villagers I can keep up to 30, and many more.

Bring back the ability to find nes games, only this time add amigo games, atari games, snes games, genesis games!

Also implement some gameplay hook beyond delivering things and collecting detritus. Id like an area that perhaps challenges me out of my cozy comfort zone.

I think also next animal crossing people should be designing "planetettes", and would skip between players little planets via rocket. Planets can be completely terraformed with unique environmental starting templates, so the variety and design forward elements would become even more varied and in depth.

@Quantumz00
Oooh...
I like the planet Terraforming idea, kinda like Spore by Maxis.

1. I would like to see more job options like working for Timmy and Tommy or Brewster, a callback from the 4 original Animal Crossing where you could do a part-time job with Tom Nook, in NGC, ACWW, ACCF, and Brewster in ACNL. it's neat that we can work in a job that can give villagers vacation homes (and make other buildings as well.) but have more optional jobs would be neat.
2. i defiantly think they should bring back the idea of placing road, terraformed, etc from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and improve from it with new features. like more roads. more Terraforming options.
3. i would like to build more shops/places in my island/town. it would be neat to see the police station, Club LOL, i wish this came back in New Horizons. (i know you couldn't build Club LOL in your town in New Leaf. but it would be so neat to see this feature come back from New Leaf to the new Game, and let you build all those special builds (excluding Museum and Timmy & Tommy's store because those were things you can place on your island anywhere in new horizons, and i'm sure those will return in the netxt game anyways.) in the main street.
4. i would like to see all of the special characters again that didn't appear in New Horzions or only appear when you used an amiibo to see them. and actually have things to do when you interact with them. maybe have Wendell return. and gives you his special wallpapers.
5. and please Nintendo, please at least have gold and silver tools be unbreakable.

@VoidofLight
To be clear I'm not suggesting an open world or multiplayer centric Animal Crossing although I get why you read that in my post. I was more just pointing out that the "visiting another town" aspect of AC is clunky and could be improved significantly. There's room to grow there I think

The Mario Kart World example was more just me highlighting that Nintendo has been able progress even in series that appear to have reached "end game". I don't pretend to know where they would go next, I'm not a team of people doing a 9-5 thinking about where AC can go. But that team does exist and there's a good chance they land on something

Honestly this, but instead just make your map significantly larger with the ability to have additional islands. Maybe even hide that behind some kind of "fog of war" at the start and force you to actually explore the game. Make it so that when I gain the ability to dive I'm opening up new areas to develop in the same way you do now when you gain the ladder or pole

Then allow more powerful terraforming to compensate for the suprise if you don't like what you now aren't choosing. Maybe with a cost and lead time. Extending the island land, adding or removing lakes and rivers, expanding the beach front

Then increase the number of residents you can add. Increase the number of shop options. Make it so you can invite specially shops old and new. Give you flexibility in how they look/function. Make it so your town is clearly different than your friends towns

There is a lot they could do

I agree with what has been said here. New Horizons really was the ‘Breath of the Wild’ of Animal Crossing, where they really reconsidered a lot of aspects of the series and added/removed a lot of features. It created a lot of new fans, but left a lot feeling somewhat alienated. It’s actually kind of crazy how similar these two games are in this sense.

So if you ask me, Animal Crossing has already ‘reinvented itself’. All they need to do now is refine the foundation of ACNH and add in the features that fans miss.

I would personally love to see a fully controllable camera! Maybe with the switch 2 the processing power will be good enough to allow that to some extent

@skywake Ahh, that makes more sense. I could see them improving upon multiplayer, and I definitely do think that they probably have a direction they know where to go in.. but I don't think it's a situation like Mario Kart. 8 was basically the peak of the old formula, so it's understandable they went in a different direction this time around.

New Horizons on the other hand is an entirely different direction from the rest of the series, and the game sorta suffered for it. You can tell that they focused so much on the transition into HD and the customization, that the rest of the game had to be delivered later down the line. All the free updates were content being added from previous games that was unfinished before the game launched from the looks of it. Especially with the 2.0 update, where it added amiibo support for all of the Animal Crossing special characters that weren't supported before that update.

My thinking is that this next game is going to be delivering a more balanced experience again. A return to ideas or mechanics that haven't been touched in a while, whilst also expanding the stuff we saw in New Horizons. After all, they're most likely going to reuse all of the assets they made for New Horizons anyways- much like how other games in the series reused the assets for future games.

@SplatRay001 I don't think a fully controllable camera would work for Animal Crossing necessarily. The series stays to it's rendering style, not because of the tech behind it- but rather moreso because it's a stylistic choice. It's like saying that the next Persona game should get rid of the creative menus or that Pokemon should switch to a top-down city building game.

I also don't think New Horizons is outright the BotW of Animal Crossing. I don't think Animal Crossing has really had that outright. New Horizons was a change in direction, sure- but ultimately it shared a lot of DNA with what New Leaf did, which was truthfully the largest shakeup for the series to date visually and mechanically. Even then though, these games were still Animal Crossing at their core.

@VoidofLight I guess the major similarity between BOTW and ACNH was the fan reception. Both games are beloved and sold unprecedentedly well, but many fans lament the new direction of the series. I could see how one could argue New Leaf was the larger of the two when it came to series redefining changes, even if I don’t think it led to the identity crisis the Animal Crossing series currently faces.

As for the controllable camera, while I personally don’t think it would erode the identity of the series, I understand it’s probably necessary for tech reasons. I personally would really enjoy being able to examine my island/town from every angle if the option were available.

I agree with you that the logical next step for the series is iterating upon ACNH, while shifting the focus somewhat back to what made the old games so beloved. They can probably reuse a lot of their HD furniture assets, which should give more time for implementing other stuff. Overall I’m pretty confident we’ll see an announcement sometime early next year (or maybe even in a fall direct this year, truth be told)

unless the sequel is just NH but more, i think a 3d camera is a very natural evolution. I can only imagine all the hidden depth terraforming and decorating can bring when it can be viewed from any angle. a good showcase for the power of switch 2 as well. tho i can imagine the cylinder shaped world would have to be retweaked as more of a sphere

but for the sake of "vibes", i hope they ditch the deserted island aesthetic. I personally liked how previous game emphasized our town as a small place in a much bigger world. walking to mainstreet is much more gratifying and quicker than flying to harveys island. and NPCs visiting a town was much more believable than them traveling to a deserted island every week. i want the NPCs and world to feel more like a community again, i love NH but i agree its more of a decorating sim than a life sim at this point

a personal dream idea i have for hardcore players is being able to spend the millions of bells we hoard for town expansion. increasing the area we can decorate, villagers we invite, and bridges/slopes we can add. heck make it so we can purchase mini islands too if you want the deserted island aesthetic, around the same scope as the ones on mystery tours we can fully decorate and invite villagers to

I kind of hope they don't remove the fixed camera. Movable camera games are a dime a dozen but fixed camera games are rare and have their own charm.

Changing that would certainly be reinventing the series, but I'm not sure if it would be in a good way.

Not every game needs to reinvent a series. Just do the same thing... but different. It's not like people are buying AC games for radically unique gimicks, they just want some more AC.

I'll be honest, at least 70% of the changes I need for Animal Crossing is just the villagers. They had personality in the original that has slowly been stripped away into nothing. And quite honestly, they still needed more to say and do in the original for what it was, so them only going backwards is bewildering.

@kkslider5552000 The villagers and bringing back the life sim elements are the two things I want back in the next one. Stuff that actually feels like it matters for me to play the game, and that the game isn't just fully controlled by me.

New Horizons makes you a God, while the previous games were more grounded. Even New Leaf was more grounded, despite you being the mayor of the town in that one. It helped that you felt like the game will still go on even if you left it. Things weren't going to be left in the same state they were in if you dropped it for a few months, and I miss that.

@VoidofLight You could always try it as a second player on a console where someone else is playing the game; only they get to be the god, and you're very much the second-class citizen. At least, until you get your own console, which I suspect was the real point of the exercise. Continuing in that vein, they'll probably reinvent the series by giving it an open world and charging you eighty dollars for it.

Seriously, I don't think that there's much that needs changing with the core gameplay loop, and the best ways to improve the game would be to add more creative outlets. Movie making and terraforming were both very nice features, if a little clunky in their implementations which can also use work, so adding more things like that would appeal to me.

@Matt_Barber I just meant moreso in terms of having actual consequences again for not playing. Like those ugly corpse flowers in Wild World, or at least a toggle to let villagers move out on their own again, instead of holding them hostage on your island.