Topic: Can Animal Crossing still reinvent itself?

@VoidofLight Toggles where you could put back all the behavior that's changed between the games would be nice to have too.

I think it is interesting that first home console sequel to the Gamecube Animal Crossing included the Wii Speak microphone. I believe the game is designed to be social.

If there was an area they could push the boat out is online multiplayer. They clearly tried something for Switch 1, but for future games they really could do ALLOT more with online multiplayer.

The easy answer would be to introduce more social network stuff. Add a meta to the game. Copy the Zynga model a little bit. Make some aspect (the Town rating or HHA rank) passively competive.

Perhaps just amongst those on friends list.

Don't want little Jimmy or Janet get their spirits crushed by the tryhards, if it were a global leaderboard.

@SwitchplayerJohn Ehh, I kinda hope they don't focus solely on Online Multiplayer, given Animal Crossing's appeal to a lot of people is the singleplayer. Making it more online-centric would only alienate the existing fanbase more, the ones who were alienated with New Horizons.

I'd like to go back to feeling like an ordinary citizen in Animal Crossing rather than a mayor or a God. I'd like to go back to experiencing the feelings I felt in the GameCube episode.

@Ultra128
I personally hate the GameCube version by forced to play everyday or I will lost my villagers that I got them.
I don't want to feel the lonely and losing my villagers.
I love ACNH for let me be the God / Creator with almighty decision to decide whatever I want, including my villagers to stay forever in my island.
Next Animal Crossing should bring more total control of the island and more designing.

@Anti-Matter I understand your point of view and I hope the next chapter manages to satisfy everyone's tastes. For me, since they put the character at the center of the whole game, it has lost that sense of emancipation, of journey, and of discovery, in managing to integrate and feel part of a group (I don’t like to feel myself at the center of the lore in AC).

@VoidofLight I would also say deepen what you can do with the villagers. Imagine building up relationship where you can make friends and the rewards are special moments like planning a birthday party or play mini games, etc.

I'm looking forward to the next Animal Crossing, in whatever form it comes in.

I think that Nintendo will no doubt heavily utilise the Switch 2 Camera and microphone for real-time communication with friends, that would be much more enjoyable than typing messages.

I would also like to see something done about the ridiculous loading screens when your travelling to/from an island in "online" mode, it annoys me when I'm on an island and the game keeps stopping for 3-5 minutes to allow another player to come to or leave the island, no idea why Nintendo can't just make the traveller appear or disappear without interrupting everyone else. Any other multiplayer game when a player leaves, their character just vanishes, or when someone joins they just appear in game, there's no constant intermission screens. I'm hoping this is fixed.

Doing up your own island is fun, but then what? after a few months most people just erase and start a again, but if online was improved and more seamless then it would add more depth to the game. If they can have 24-players online in Mario Kart World, in a world as big as Mario Kart World, then they can do the same to Animal Crossing.

Maybe Island Challenge or something, 10 players are sent to a random island and given challenges/tasks to complete within a time frame, all players working together to clear trees, obtain wood, build bridges, pick fruit etc ... just something fun for online play every now and then. The Island Games, or Animal Crossing Olympics... I don't know, something along those lines would just be so much fun.

Not really an Animal Crossing fan, I don't really like that the gameplay involves a lot of tedious chores, but I do like some other types of sim games that involve building something up that's a little more exciting so I'm kind of on the periphery wanting to like this IP but not having an Animal Crossing game that really appeals to me. One thing they could do that might draw me in is a Tom Nook spinoff that goes in more of a business management direction, I tend to enjoy those kinds of games on mobile.

@Bolt_Strike Animal Crossing isn't for everyone, and that's alright. It doesn't really have to be for everyone. It's what I hate about modern games now. Tons of people like the ideas of series, but don't like to acknowledge that the gameplay isn't really for them- so they demand the game to change to meet their needs.. or the companies try to cast as wide of a net as they can by watering the game down.

New Horizons was already Animal Crossing at its most watered down. I really wouldn't want to see them changing things drastically from what the series used to be.

@VoidofLight Which is why I said "spinoff", so the main series can retain its identity while branching into more broadly appealing concepts. I will probably never like the main series and that's okay, but I do want this kind of game.

This kind of game I described is relatively popular and doesn't exist in Nintendo's library, so it's worth doing in some capacity. And Animal Crossing is the best IP for the concept, so yeah, if they ever do see fit to make that kind of game, it probably will be an Animal Crossing spinoff (either that or a new IP, but it's similar enough to Animal Crossing that I think they just do spinoff).

Nintendo really need to evolve the formula somewhat, ACNH was good but there have been so many good games of this type since then. Fantasy Life I being the newest, definitely takes some inspiration from AC but has so much more to do too. I don't think I could go back to playing ACNH after Fantasy Life I.

@Fizzle002 Ehhh, I don't think it does. If anything it needs to go a bit further back to it's roots as New Horizons was seriously compromising the balance that the series had going for it. Fantasy Life I is an entirely different type of game from what Animal Crossing is trying to do, and it doesn't really invoke that same feel that Animal Crossing historically has for me.

At this point it has more to do with laziness. The issues and constraints you talking about might have been true back in the DS/3DS days, but the Switch and now the Switch 2 don't have those constraints.
Both Switch and Switch 2 have a ton more RAM, much faster and larger storage. So those constraints are a non-issue.

To make matters even worse. Animal Crossing New Horizons on Switch managed to launch with less content than its 3DS predecessor New Leaf. Which Nintendo got hugely criticized for and then to add insult to injury, as answer they re-repacked Happy Home Designer as a PAID expansion to the game.

And to top off and add even more insult to injury. Just look at what LEVEL5 managed to do with Fantasy life back on the 3DS and now with Fantasy Life i on Switch/Switch 2. The amount of content, diverse gameplay and options it has. It totally puts Animal Crossing to shame.

But this just emphasizes in what Nintendo has become in recent years. Arrogant, complacent and more focused on Litigation and IP protection, milking NSO with drip feed retro releases for the umpteenth time, than actually focusing on delivering good games.

Mario Kart World is a huge disappointment, compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Especially for the excessive prices they are charging now for their first party Switch 2 games.

It says everything, when you open the Switch 2 eShop and check out new releases, that you are greeted by 30+ Hentai girls games and DLCs.

@Jeronan "It's just laziness"

The cone world isn't laziness. I am not a fan of New Horizons, but even I know that it isn't because the devs are lazy. It has and always will be a stylistic choice that the developers made with Wild World. It's like saying that Persona using low detailed character models for crowds is just the "devs being lazy" or that 2D Mario games are aesthetically lazy because they're not fully 3D. The rendering of half objects on a cone is both a stylistic choice and one that helps them with development of the game.

Also Fantasy Life is an entirely different game, and Fantasy Life i was developed by entirely different people with a huge gap between entries. Fantasy Life i isn't as good as the original 3Ds game either. The story isn't as well written, and it most of the level design suffers in order to have procedurally generated dungeons. The town building wasn't very engaging, and the Open World was one of the most forgettable game worlds I've ever experienced. As a fan of the original game on 3DS, Fantasy Life i isn't as disappointing as New Horizons was, but it was still massively disappointing for me.

As for Nintendo not "delivering good games," it kinda tells me how little you play Nintendo games. It ignores that Monolithsoft exists with the Xenoblade series. It ignores how modern Mario titles have actually gotten better with things like Super Mario Bros Wonder and the resurgence of Mario RPGs. It ignores how good Luigi's Mansion 3 was compared to the pathetic game that was Luigi's Mansion 2. Nintendo still makes good games- and a lot of their games are higher quality compared to games produced on other consoles. I can pick up a Nintendo game day one and at least be confident that there's no game breaking bugs. Meanwhile on PS5 and PC, I can't say the same.

Also, you're misplacing the reasons why New Horizons wasn't as good as New Leaf btw. New Horizons isn't as good- mainly because they took a new direction with the series. Instead of what New Leaf did, where the series had a balance of both customization and life sim gameplay, New Horizons goes full decorating sim. They nerfed all aspects of the life simulator gameplay, and released a game that needed more time in development (mainly because most of development was spent on making the graphics look nice and polished over the actual gameplay). Adding a free camera wouldn't fix the issues New Horizons had. Going back towards the older style of gameplay will.

Also- for the record, City Folk was on the Wii. The Wii could handle games with the graphics of City Folk but with 3D worlds. Despite this, City Folk kept to WildWorld's rendering technique- mainly because it's apart of the style and charm of the series.

I read allot of responses and there are allot of good points. My girlfriend and I both liked New Horizons allot, her more so than me but it did fall a little flat. It really didn't add much at all to the franchise. We did like the setting on a island.

I do not think they need to reinvent the game at all and probably would disappoint more people if they tried to reinvent the game.

Things we actually talked about liking to see new:

More interaction with the items other than just looking at them.
Mini games what happened there? Mini games to play with NPC and multiplayer.
Bigger spaces to develop.
More shops.
More support long term.
More multiplayer.

I honestly think we are going to get two animal crossing games this Gen.

I think we get a New Leaf game either as port or a enhanced version plus we will see something new.

Want more real life activities in Animal Crossing-how about a baseball field or sumo wrestling arena in your town where you go watch matches?

I think keeping decent amount of customization and control on New Horizons will be nice if they add back the socialization aspect. I, admittedly was hooked a ton on NH (especially on the turnip haha), while WW and New Leaf never did. But I heard more about the Gamecube's villagers and those are just so much cooler i hope they'll add those personalities back tbh.

Somebody just keep complaining about ACNH.
Get over it!
Play the GameCube version instead if you want to torture yourself with archaic limitation in life sim games.
ACNH is wonderful, Fantasy Life I is the next level of ACNH.