Gallery: Another Huge Batch Of Animal Crossing: New Horizons Screenshots Appears

We're not going to play table tennis, are we?

@SuperCharlie78 it'd be so nice to actually use those items

Animal Crossing is great and all but Nintendo needs to do a Direct for the rest of us who aren't into it.

@Nomad I'm into Animal Crossing but yes they need a Direct with some other surprises. I'm just afraid they don't have anything to show. There's just so much in the eshop...mostly indy games it feels like. Pikmin 4 would be a nice surprise. Along with another Excite Truck....just sayin...

Looks amazing, really happy you can put furniture outside now. Can't wait for the 20th!

They've really nailed the visuals in this game. The whole thing comes together so nicely.

@Nomad it’ll be after ac is released. The same thing happened last year didn’t it? After Yoshi or Mario u or something. They wait till their big release is out.

But where is a proper Direct?!

@Joe-b Two of my fave franchises, right there <3

@zitpig Awesome! The amount of time I put into Excite Truck was crazy.

@Joe-b Me too. I put more time into that racing game than any other.

theres literally so much to do and customize i almost feel overwhelmed on how im gonna make use of all of it for my island. ive never felt that creative with laying out designs and furniture

We still have one month to get a spring direct. So it still can happen.😃

@SuperCharlie78 This is what I don't get about the evolution of Animal Crossing. By now I would have expected more in the way of little mini-games that you could play against the CPU, such as tennis, chess etc. About the closest I've encountered so far is rock-paper-scissors (1 round only!)

Collecting Pikmin in AC? That would indeed be awesome

Getting so hyped for this, the 20th seems ages off.

Is it March 20th yet?

Ooh... !
Omoshiroi. (Robotnik accent) 😀

I need to send my switch to Nintendo. I have put a massive scratch through the centre of the screen and I'm not a happy bunny at the moment. Nintendo have said it will cost upwards of £150 but wont take too long to be returned. Going to get it post off tomorrow morning

Hopefully Puzzle League is playable again.

I have never needed anything more than I need this game right now.

Three comments in and the “we need a Direct” starts. To be fair, Nintendo don’t need to do anything. Getting as bad as the Persona port beggars now

Regarding others' desire for a Direct that addresses more than one game, I wrote about this at length under another article awhile back. Nintendo packed the Switch's first year and a half with fantastic first-party titles...because they knew they'd have to after leaving the Wii U to dry up for more than a full year with scarcely any such support. And a lot of folks made the mistake of believing that rapid release schedule signaled a permanent change in Nintendo's approach, in short that they had "learned a lesson" from their handling of the Wii U.

The Smash-centric Direct two E3s ago and the subsequent Directs dedicated solely to it were the first warning that perhaps things really hadn't changed all that much. The "other suprises" that Nintendo promised to fans disappointed by that E3 showing never materialized. Ditto their handling of Switch Online (they require an outpouring of outrage from gamers just to include cloud save support in some of their most time-intensive, biggest AAA first-party games). By the time of the last E3, Luigi's Mansion 3, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing were the primary Christmas season announcements; all were highly anticipated, but Animal Crossing's slippage into 2020 made that season...now the second of the Switch's three years in existence...pale in comparison to the first.

So now what do we (realistically) have to look forward to in 2020 and beyond? Well, we know that Metroid Prime 4 and Zelda: BotW 2 are in development, and it's likely we'll see footage of one or both during this year's E3 Direct, but it's frankly doubtful either will be out this year. The good thing about that is that Nintendo takes their time to make these "core" IPs the absolute best they can be; the not-so-good thing is that they could end up debuting on future hardware. There are precedents for this: BotW was originally in development for Wii U and the Wii U version was released simultaneously with the Switch version (too little, too late, unfortunately), and Twilight Princess likewise was both a GameCube and Wii release.

What then could tide us over in between? What franchises could be big enough to fill that all-important "system-seller" role this Christmas? This is where expectations need to be tempered. Certainly there are announcements coming, but don't expect a "mainstream" Mario or Zelda game this Christmas (those typically take years). Remakes of older games from various Nintendo IPs are practically a guarantee given Nintendo's track record to date on the Switch, but while those sell they can't be expected to generate the same level of excitement. Realistically I'd say we can expect between two and three major original first-party announcements to release later this year, probably led by the likes of a new Mario Kart, if not this year then almost certainly next year (yes, MK8 is still selling, but we're technically at least midway through the Switch's life cycle and it needs another major original multiplayer game in its catalog badly).

"Is that all", you ask. Based on the past two years, yes, most likely. The Teflon the Switch had early on with so much positive buzz has honestly worn off a lot by this point; the honeymoon is over, and now we're settling in to the reality. There are probably still some amazing games in its future, but they'll be coming spaced further apart...along with Directs which will likely be dedicated to one at a time more often as a result.

Animal Crossing is a lovely little game to play. It is funny and mild, but if there is any game ever in history that does not get me excited via screenshots its Animal Crossing. The screenshots just can't sell the game well at all

@Welshland,

Better that trying to buy a new one in the U.K, the console has been in very short supply since Christmas, hope you get your screen sorted.

@AtlanteanMan,

What are you talking about?, the Switch is in massive demand, the main audience for the console could live off the insane amount of indie titles that are constantly being released, as for new third party games, there will be lots in the works that have not been announced as yet, you have to remember Nintendo have only one console to develop for now, they just wan't to give all the limelight to Animal crossing as it's a big release.

Also you can't rule out the impact of the Corona virus, it's made Switch consoles pretty hard to come by, so why have a massive direct to generate interest in a console when there are no consoles to sell.

ahh seeing these screenshots while listening to the animal crossing soundtrack with rain effect in the back is the best relaxation ever, now i don't have to be a crack head wanting this game badly lmao. seriously cannot wait to play it.

What if the Nintendo Direct is hidden inside Animal Cross? We watch it IN the game!

That would be real clever. I mean, people would rage and complain like all hell, but I'd like the idea.

I wanted to see some direct-feed footage of the PAX demo, so I guess more screenshots are cool.

@johnvboy; I know. I toyed with the idea of buying a lite as i mostly use the console as a hand held and keep the original switch as a docked machine. But I'm going to send it home to Nintendo to be repaired, should only take 10 days according to Nintendo

@Welshland,

I only saw a Switch Lite in the flesh recently at my local toy supermarket, looks awesome to be honest very sturdy and more compact than it appears on pictures.

I hear so many people pumped for this game, I think this may be Animal Crossing's chance to become as big a franchise for Nintendo as Zelda.

I was going to hold off on this but I think I may get it at launch.

@echoplex Wintry landscape is what I try to avoid. Winter time should be illegal even in video games. I was going to choose the southern hemisphere thinking I could hide from the winter....but then I found out I could not.