Nintendo has announced that the next free update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons will arrive later this week, bringing all sorts of feathers and festivities along for the ride.
The new update includes a Festivale event, new seasonal additions, new Reactions, and new items to purchase. It all kicks off on Thursday 28th January:
- Festivale Event – Feel the heat with the colorful Festivale event filled with dancing and flying feathers! On Feb. 15, Dancer Pavé will arrive to your island’s plaza to usher in some confetti and carnival spirit. On the day of the event you can capture colorful feathers floating on your island with your net and trade them to Pavé to receive a passionate dance number in return. Rainbow feathers seem to be an especially rare sight, so be sure to catch them and trade them with Pavé. Invite friends over to your island or visit theirs to partake in the festivities together.
- New Reactions – If you want to express your excitement for Festivale, you’ll now have a range of new Reactions to choose from. The Viva Festival Reaction Set can be purchased with in-game Bells from the shelf at Nook’s Cranny for a limited time and includes Feelin’ It, Let’s Go, Viva and Confetti.
- New Clothing – Starting Feb. 1, Festivale clothing will be available at the Able Sisters shop for a limited time. Now you can get your Festivale groove on in style with these fashionable looks!
- Seasonal Items – Make sure to keep an eye out for seasonal items at the Nook Stop in Resident Services and through Nook Shopping. Celebrate the sentimental season with chocolate hearts and heart-shaped bouquets, which will be available for purchase beginning Feb. 1 and running through Feb. 14. There will also be other items related to Groundhog Day and Big Game Celebration available for certain periods during January and February!
As you've probably come to expect by now, that's not all! The next free update has already been teased, with more free content planned to launch in March this year, and Nintendo has also revealed that the super-popular Animal Crossing x Sanrio amiibo cards are making a comeback.
Excited for some new Animal Crossing activities? Let us know if you'll be jumping into the Festivale Event with a comment below.
Comments 70
I feel like one of the few remaining Switch owners who just doesn't get the hype or appeal to this game. Still, I'm glad to see a Nintendo exclusive doing so well and seemingly offering plenty of content
Anything outside of Festivale? There were some rumours about ceiling decoration, and having villagers over.
Wahoo eh looks pretty sick, I'll take it, I'm excited for the Mario update though
I could care less about the bird i want my mario update
Looking forward to Festival and the Valentine's Day stuff. My wife hasn't played since New Years, now she'll have an excuse, doubt we'll be doing too much IRL again this year.
Thanks again to whoever told me Festival was coming. Sorry I can't recall who it was but there's only like 2 dozen of us following these articles, so hoping they see this. This is my 1st AC game, had no idea.
Disappointing that it's just event related content. An update's going to add something permanent of note to get me back into New Horizons
Yay...!
2 more days. 😀
I noticed Pave's voice sounds masculine from the trailer instead of Peppy voice from ACNL. 😮
And the Nintendo stuffs updates, of course... on 10 March 2021 as celebration of Mario Day.
That's pretty disappointing, I was hoping for more since we had to wait so long.
But at least we have one day with an event in February - January has been boring 😂
@Anti-Matter I noticed that too! Although the new voice feels
a little more fitting to me.
I'm pretty excited for this. Seems like fun.
While this one is light on content, it's also the last holiday. Now, they can't fall back on that and maybe NL players can stop crying about Brewster's. Although, I suspect that one is in the update after March.
Edit: I do wonder when they will do the March update. Should be a decent enough one.
Watched the vid w/ my wife. We're in agreement, Pave is Sylvando from DQXI.
Do you play JRPG @Anti-Matter ? I think you'd appreciate this.
Why do they keep calling these FREE updates its making me scared of paying for DLC
@Anti-Matter
Yeah, you're right. It's gotta be March 10. I really miss the Nintendo-themed items. Hopefully other franchises make an appearance too besides Mario.
HAHAHAHA THAT IS AMAZING yes. Sylvando is Pave
I am sure I'll log log in and check it out. most these events are lame. I'd rather QOL changes. But wutever. I played it none stop for two months and then off and on for half a year. much longer than most games I play.
PAVE'S DANCE THEME SOUNDS LIKE ARMS?!?!
Crossover confirmed.
Isabelle X Arms
the next major update of Animal Crossing New Horizons is only this? disapointing i was expecting celling itens and your Villagers now be able to visit your house, maybe Nintendo is saving this features and mechanics for the 1 year anniversary of Animal Crossing New Horizons(they can't simply do a update with only the Mario itens).
This looks like a great update.
@1ofUs Yep. We need our Mario update!
( we didn’t forget you Luigi. Your the best. Luigi update too.)
No Brewster. No Party
I do not think that I am alone in saying that the Feelin’ It Reaction just reminds me of Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsdIRN6DJo8
Still no Gyroids??
@Yorumi I agree... I'm HOPING the substantial updates will begin after March 20th when the game's been out for a year, because presumably Bunny Day, Wedding Photos, May Day etc will just repeat each year and they'll need something different to pull people in? I know the main events were repeated each year in New Leaf.
At l(e)ast we're getting something.
Come on Nintendo don't be shy, bring back base game features from past games from a decade ago, you can do it.
Also quality of life updates, It's ok we won't mind
It's all a bit weak Ribena in terms of updates. I feel like I've exhausted all the content & they're missing the magic that was present in New Leaf from day one.
I’m disappointed in this game honestly. 60 bucks for a game that has less content than a 40 dollar game. I used to be a massive fan of this series, and I own every single game in it, excluding amiibo festival. By far, this has to be the weakest excuse for an animal crossing game. So many missing features, so many missing characters. I know most of those will return in future updates, but I feel like it’s a waste of time waiting for a finished product, when it should’ve already have been finished at launch. This update is especially disappointing honestly. It only contains a holiday, and nothing else. Enough content to hold us over for a month am I right?
@Yorumi It’s more just a sad attempt at a live service. They stripped all the content from this game to update back into it artificially. Some people sadly fall for it, and defend it, which will eventually cause this behavior to happen to all Animal Crossing games in the future. It doesn’t help that the co-director was the director of pocket camp.
Yeeees! I'm just sad it's a single day, it should be like Halloween or Bunny Day in that the event has a lasting effect through the month. In a regular year we'd be having Carnaval parties every weekend in Brazil at this time of the year, I'm glad I'll at least be able to celebrate somewhat in ACNH.
And hey guys, all those silly Halloween costumes, the glittery shorts, sushi costumes and, specially, glitter masks you've seen in the game already?? IT'S TIME TO WEAR THEM! IT'S FESTIVALE!!!
@Yorumi Agreed. If they released the completed game, and made new content, I would’ve been content.. it’s just that they didn’t, and it disappoints me immeasurably.
And the mandatory
WE WANT BREWSTER and WE WANT HIM NOW!!!!
Also can we make the snow go away i am sick of it after a month
I love New Horizons, but I agree we shouldn't have to wait at least a year to get staple things like Brewster, gyroids, etc. It's just too long. But the ability to actually fully customize your island, not just terraforming but putting items outside your house, is a big step forward for the series. That was a very limiting factor in previous entries. I am very grateful for that. The improved storage system and room design management is also a big improvement. I don't miss any of the other stores in New Leaf besides possibly Club LOL. I do miss Tortimer's Island. This game has a great base to it, just give us the extra content.
@rjejr
You nailed it!
Brewster or riot.
Don't care until we get our beloved coffee-making pigeon back. I want to be able to make coffee for my villagers. Every other "event" is just filler, and pales in comparison.
My wife was wondering whether or not to have a brazilian on her island and now she has no choice
Does someone here know who Billie Eillish is?!
My hypothesis that this year the updates will focus on bringing back the Nintendo stuff is coming true. I bet the update after the Mario one will be Zelda themed.
@Thundertron55 If that's true, and they've got nothing else planned in terms of actually giving people basic gameplay features that weren't present.. then this year looks bleak for this game honestly. It's already bad enough that the Nintendo items were stripped out for updates as is..
@Yorumi I like New Horizon and clocked in a good number of hours into this but I definitely know what you mean. The DJ club, more upgrade shops is what I want back.
@Thundertron55 maybe they might make Zelda gear for its 35th anniversary and more
@VoidofLight @Yorumi : I completely agree with you guys. New Horizons has been a huge disappointment to me for the same reason and it sets an unfortunate precedent for the series (as well as other Nintendo games moving forward, though it has already happened with ARMS, Mario Tennis Open, and Splatoon 2 all being released in an incomplete state with the remaining content being added in incrementally).
People whinge and moan about Super Mario Party, but I was happy that the game was COMPLETE, even if the content was lacking, but that was an issue of the game's design, not due to Nintendo artificially withholding content that was intended to be patched in later. Am I the only one who appreciates a good Version 1.0 physical copy?
While I played New Horizons every day for the first three or so months after launch, I only play a 2-3 times a month at most now (which reminds me that I haven't touched the game since New Year's Eve/Day), and I don't really understand how the game can be "spoiled" when most of the patched content so far was comprised of content from past games, and has, by and large, been underwhelming.
The dialogue is also painfully "safe" (there is a drastic shift in tone from the GameCube/DS days), and that concerns me too as the characters often utter platitudes ("net speak" if you will) that makes the game feel dated/anachronistic from the get-go. A game like Animal Crossing should have a timeless quality to it, but New Horizons well and truly feels like a "product of its time" in this climate of mollycoddling people from reality (and any "mean-spiritedness" of the characters in earlier installments was always silly and in good fun and was often the highlight of my sessions).
I still enjoy the game when I do play it, but there just isn't enough to keep me coming back at this point.
@CIARDI OK I'll bite, why do you ask about Billie? I think she's big enough everyone should have at least heard of her, but on Pushsquare nobody knew who Dua Lipa was so maybe gamers just don't do music? 🤷♀️
@k8sMum About Sylvando? Gotta give my wife some credit on that one, I remembered the game but she remembered his name.
@Silly_G I also recently fell out of the game. After Toy Day, I just decided it wasn't really worth playing the game anymore, so I just sort of dropped it. Didn't help that I had other games taking my attention, like Hyrule Warriors and Persona.
@rjejr I love this
Also I’m probably the few ppl still playing the game often. I really enjoy rearranging island decor and polishing my town. I’ve also enjoyed making clothes, photo shoots, moving my villagers, getting events to look forward to. I have over 1200 hours lol. However I agree that it’s time for a an update like mini games, more dialogue, gyroids, and possible another island. Here’s hoping!
@Kirby_Girl Wow 1,200 hours. I'm around 500, playing a few days a week now but the next few weeks will probably get me playing again for the this update. Not much into designing or moving stuff around. I do like getting new villagers but having 400 potential villagers limited to 8 different types is getting limited even for me. Every one on my island has crusty clothes. 🤣
But 500 hours is till 500 hours, some people expect way too much from a time killer game. Though apparently the long timers know stuff is missing from previous games, this being my first I have no comparisons. 🤷♀️
Wow, I thought I was the only one who thought this game is lacking. Nice to see I'm not alone for once. It's the lack of things to do with rhe villagers that gets me. I was hoping for interactions with them to make the village feel alive, but it's more of a showroom island.
I'm sad. The initial updates were pretty good, but now it seems like the updates are solely to add holidays at this point. New Horizons is a great game, but it could be so much more if Nintendo would put more effort to bring more furniture variety (simply adding missing NL items would do a lot. Now, add PC items, and the town designing options are limitless) and improve the villagers.
I'm just shocked that Brewster and the Gyroids still haven't returned. And the March update, sorry to say, doesn't look exciting. One of the most boring themes I ever saw people use in their New Leaf homes was Mario items. I'm sorry to be like that, it's just I feel like the novelty of those items wore off to me after the first Animal Crossing.
@andrew20 It's still winter.
@VoidofLight,
I can see why you and others will feel this way, however I have a different take on the situation.
Nine hundred hours in and still playing every day, the additional content and items has also been nice, I do agree with people on the upgrade to the store, however I can take or leave Brewster as I never visited him that much in new leaf, I would much rather the observatory for Celeste come back if I was being honest, and of course with the massive community in this game items are pretty easy to obtain, and the shopping app on your Nook phone makes the store slightly redundant anyway.
I do think however we are not giving the decorating and terra forming aspects of this game enough credit, as you can create so much and it's a constant source of enjoyment for me, simply running round the island admiring all my hard work, and to be honest even though I loved New Leaf, I put nowhere near the hours into it as I have with this latest game.
A massive part of this is also down to the visuals, as the whole thing looks so good now, and each villager looks so much better than in previous outings, also the massive upgrade the museum has had is often overlooked too, this is another area that benefits greatly from the upgraded visuals etc.
It's very easy for people to look at the missing features and totally dismiss any advancements, a massive one being from the Switch console itself, as the series has traditionally been a handheld experience and I do play in that mode quite a lot, but the ability to play on T.V or on my Projector opens the game up more for me, and takes full advantage of the upgrade in visual fidelity.
I am also not against the more gradual updates in this game as I always have things to do, they are a nice thing to look forward too rather than getting everything all at once, and I feel you get more out of them this way, and like others have also said on this and other comment sections the game is great value for money.
Of course the value aspect will be down to your own personal point of view, for me I see this as a life simulator in which you just decide how much time you want to invest on a day to day basis, you will have goals to what you want to do, but there is no real end point and a completion point to the game, too many people are looking at this as a game to be completed, and once they experience everything they get bored, I feel this totally misses the whole point of the game.
Dream address DA-0957-2799-1843
@johnvboy
Absolutely agree with you 😊
@peppermillian,
The fact the game was launched during the global pandemic has escaped many people, I think the amount of updates has been pretty amazing when you take this into account.
@rjejr @rjejr,
I have only put around 300 hours into Zelda, and now I am up to 900 hours on this game, how some people can't see any value in this game is beyond me.
@johnvboy I do think part of the problem was the pandemic. ACNH seems best played about 1 hour a day, just run a few errands and done, maybe not even every day, just every other day, but then b/c of the pandemic everybody was playing 5 or 6 hours a day and rushed through in 6 months what should have taken them 3 years.
Also, from reading comments over the past year, the game is missing components form previous AC games. This is my first so I don't know, but for long time players I keep seeing "Where are the ????" posts.
So I burned out s well, but I got my money's worth. So I kind of both moved on but keep playing, I'm just not playing it all day every day, just a bit here and there. For me it's a mobile game on the Switch, I just paid $60 up front rather than microtransactions over the course of the game.
Oh, and it is SO MUCH BETTER than Pocket Camp. I suppose that was really my first AC game. That was and is pretty bad. Actually I also bought AC: amiibo Festival. one of the worst pieces of software ever programmed. That was so bad I erased it form my memory and just pretend it doesn't exist. But in the beginning it probably helped my appreciate of ACNH.
@Yorumi ,
Well first of all I like the game on a personal level as I am sure others do as well, now I have said there is stuff missing but there are also some pretty cool additions too, I get you do not like it and it's up to you. I am comparing the added terra forming features to previous versions of the franchise not Minecraft etc, and I personally do not like the visuals of those games, I am sure they are awesome in every other respect.
As for my time playing the game, I have had it since March when we had a two month lock down in the U.K, so I had a lot of spare time to devote to the game, I still have kept up with my responsibilities as you put it, and I do not feel I am in the minority putting a lot of time into the game, but your opinion is again up to you, as you seem to be suggesting I am lying which is strange, I guess you have issues with people having fun with games you personally do not like.
It's ridiculous for this to be considered a "free update". This was an incomplete game.
@Boidoh,
It's just an update to the game, it's only sites like this that continue to report the fact it's free.
@Yorumi Yeah I've read enough to know it wasn't just furniture. My house has too much stuff as it is already. 🤣 The last update from 1,600 to 2,400 sort of saved the game for me, I had been maxed out for awhile and really was sick of the inventory management. 😝
But even w/o playing the other games I knew this game must be lacking, there really isn't much going on for this series of games to have such a big following. Even the worst-game-ever-made AC:aF had that island survivor game which they added into New Leaf Welcome amiibo addition. The ENTIRE board game from AC:aF should be in ACNH. Not exactly, but something similar. I have 4 Nintendo gamers in my house but nobody will play ACNH w/ me b/c there literally is nothing to do multiplayer but walk around. My wife played w/ me for an hour and couch co-op is an absolutely broken embarrassment disaster of an add-on. Not to mention people can't even jump in, they have to start their own game first, on my island. SMH
I know that isn't one of the issues for long time players, don't think the 3DS game had couch co-op w/ 1 console, but I can see the need for more to do in multiplayer that must be missing.
I do wonder if the limited island size cut down on all of those locations you mentioned.
"night club for KK, a shoe store, gardening store, accessory store, hair salon, fortune telling building, a cafe, police station, post office, observatory"
When my wife finally played - to join me for our virtual NYE since IRL was a no go - I had to move stuff around to have a place for her to live. So I'm not sure where I'd put half that stuff even if it was available. I sure as heck would like a KK disco or party room of some sort. Billiards. Darts. Video arcade. You even play Shenmue? Didn't the original AC have old NES games to play? Wiki thinks so
https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/NES_Games
So yeah, stuff to do. I'd make room for that. I only let young party popstar girls live on my island, they'd love karaoke night.
One of the best things I've liked about ACNH is the fanbase. Almost nobody comes into these articles to comment except the fans. Well ok there's some hate, but nobody ever replies to me "git gud". Everyone has been helpful to my noobnees. It's very nice. 😁
@johnvboy The game has made advancements, which are good.. but honestly, the graphics and town editing are the only things there. I also don’t think that monthly updates are a bad thing, and would enjoy them more of they had new content, and if the base game had been worth 60 dollars.
In new horizons right now, I have like 100 hours or a bit over, which is barely any time, and covers the first two months mostly. These updates did keep me coming back.. but hindered my enjoyment of the game, and hindered me from playing everyday as I started to get bored. There’s nothing really left for me, except waiting at this point, since I’m not good at designing towns, and while I haven’t completed my Museum, I got close.
I guess it’s good that people enjoy the game for what it is, but I personally rather go back to new leaf, even if it’s worse graphically.
@rjejr They could make more islands if they wanted, and put stores on there. Like maybe a shopping Island nearby, which mimics the city from city folk, or mainstreet fron New Leaf. That could solve the space issue.
@VoidofLight,
Get your points and do see why some are upset, but from my own personal opinion I like this Animal Crossing game the best.
@Yorumi "meaningful interactions"
Blathers really needs to buy some of my assessed fossils one of these days b/c I've had him assess about 1,500 of them and he keeps saying he wants to buy them, but he never does. 😝
No joke, when I originally set up my island I had the museum on the west coast and Nook's Cranny on the east coast but I moved the store next to the museum JUST to sell assessed fossils. Just have Blathers buy them. Done.
I know that's not what you meant, but it bothers me that Blathers keep repeating that same line 300 times and yet never buys them. He needs to either buy them or STFU. 😂
@VoidofLight Oh they definitely need more islands. They made an island just to take photos, they could, really should, make a commercial island so I can keep mine basically a campground. I have almost no pavement, it's all flowers and trees.
Why they don't, I don't know. Laziness? Paid DLC? Trying to lock the island behind the NO paywall? Trying to promote online multiplayer? But the game is missing what seems like endless things it could have I'll stick w/ laziness. 😝
@rjejr That also reminds me of how easily they could fit Tortimer's island into this game, mainly due to the theme of the game itself. They might be saving that for a multiplayer DLC expansion pack or something though.
@VoidofLight Not sure who Tortimer is but I do have a turtle amiibo. They are all facing the wall b/c as I scanned each in to visit the campsite none of them would so I put them back on the shelf one at a time this way. I do have the amiibo 3 cards from AC:aF who all visited but none of the toys.
So yeah, tons of stuff they could do. And they might some day, New Leaf got the Welcome amiibo update about 2 or 3 years after release I think. I would think after a year of holiday updates, which really only need to be played once, we'll get some newer additions. Better than Redd who shows up once a month. They need an update where we get both 1 person walking the island - Sahara, Flick, CJ, seagull, Redd - and 1 person either in front of resident services - Mabelle, Kix, Weeds - or in the campsite. Campsite visitors are too rare.
Oh, and the islands we visit need to have a much greater variety. What are there like 6 mostly the same? We've only had a puzzle 1 once like 10 months ago. Wasn't the best, but at least it was different. I'm not convinced they are even trying.
@sanderev there is no snow here in years
@johnvboy Tbh I haven't been into AC since the Gamecube one. This was the first one since that clicked. I don't want to go back to before you terraform. Also I think those comparing AC to minecraft are a bit ludicrous. Minecraft's simple graphics allow for the terraforming options it has. No way AC can work like Minecraft. Nor is AC an adventure game.
@CyrilSockbone you don't own the Great Moor library gym mate, you hold it for 3+ days and then refuse to let anyone stay on it longer than an hour. share the gym or you'll be targeted every day and won't get to stay on anywhere. share the gyms Brandon, i know who you are.
@CyrilSockbone mate you've got your coins overnight, why do you insist on taking the great moor library gym back instantly? it's not your gym, you don't own it. let other players sit on it for a bit otherwise you'll make yourself a target and trust me you do not want that. play fair
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