Animal Crossing: New Horizons offers hours of fun all year round, but as veteran players will know, things get even more exciting when in-game events take over your precious island.
As you might expect, the festive season is a particularly joyous time – this weekend saw plenty of social media users sharing videos of their island's New Year countdowns as we entered 2021, and Christmas events like Toy Day made the long wait for Santa on Christmas Eve slightly more bearable. Players even had the opportunity to enjoy seasonal food items to celebrate.
But sadly, not everyone will have been able to enjoy these events. As it turns out, for these events to play out in-game, players need to reach a certain point of progression in building up their island and opening up the Town Hall. Depending on how you choose to play this can take a good while to complete, and anyone who hasn't yet met the requirements won't be able to see any of these special events in any shape or form.
Usually, this might not seem like much of a problem – unlocking more content by achieving in-game tasks feels rewarding, right? – but what about all the new players who will have been gifted a copy of the game over the festive period, possibly assuming they'd be able to join in with the celebrations that Nintendo has been advertising?
For Nintendo Life reader, Dennis, this exact situation caused disappointment for the whole family:
"Me, my wife and my two children love Animal Crossing and all have a copy of New Leaf on our 3DS systems. We especially enjoy the Christmas and New Years events. We only owned a single Nintendo Switch, so we didn't have the game there, until Christmas – where I surprised my wife and kids with a Switch Lite each, including Animal Crossing.
We were really looking forward to playing the Christmas and New Years events in New Horizons... We played for hours each day, but on Xmas and New Years NOTHING happened at our islands. No gifts, no countdown, not even a mention of it.
Turns out that for anything event-related to happen you need to level up your town centre. My wife played the most every day and managed to do this on Jan 2nd, my kids and I are still on it. So for anybody who got a Switch and Animal Crossing for Christmas it was IMPOSSIBLE to take part in the Xmas and New Years events. What a disappointment. There was nothing for new players, not even a mention or anything else."
A quick chat at Nintendo Life HQ reveals that a young family member also fell foul of the problem over the holidays as they hadn't yet completed the necessary tasks. Progression and content unlocks have been a thing in gaming for as long as we can remember, so it's hard to complain about the practice being used here, but could locking new players out of special, time-specific events be considered a bit of an oversight on Nintendo's part, especially surrounding the holidays?
Did you encounter a similar issue with New Horizons this holiday? Had you already played enough of the game to see the celebrations? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
Comments (33)
Well they missed every other event as well, that's just how life works...even if it's a fictional one in Animal Crossing.
At least there's always next year
It’s okay. I’m sure that if they like the game well enough they will keep playing in order to experience them this year. I would imagine they are just happy they got the game. Honestly I’m shocked this is even an article.
It wasn't that special... so nobody missed anything.
Could they bump the system date back a few days? I've never messed with time travelling but on New Years I changed the hours ahead so my youngest could enjoy the countdown without having to actually stay up to midnight.
Unfortunate yes, but those special events are very basic and aren't granting any essential items or abilities, and it's not like NYE was the last one. They talk like the events are the biggest point of playing the game.
Yeah, I got my game on my Birthday and I could not do any of the fun birthday things. It was really frustrating knowing that I had to wait until NEXT year to do the fun Birthday things. It is even worse knowing that Bunny Day is 2 days after my B day so it just is sad.
No. 1, what @hakjie11 said. I think the greater disappointment will be a year from now, when these people finally get to see the meh gifts they missed out on this year.
No. 2, leveling up is a way of life in gaming. No matter when you purchase a game you have to start from zero and progress. On the other hand, these new Animal Crossing players get to make snowmen much sooner than the people who starting playing when the game released.
Also I am always really busy on Christmas Eve so I never am able to celebrate Christmas in AC
@LatsaSpege Agreed. Some of these events should be stretched across two days. I don't like feeling that I have to take a break from a holiday to play a game, and time traveling should never be a necessity.
I can always go back by time travelling.
Well the events in animal crossing are pretty boring and add a couple of items to the game but nothing ground breaking, they need to add new game mechanics like farming or mini games
Back in NL we told people who got the game later they can just do it next year.
@Anti-Matter I did time travel backwards by one hour on New Years Eve so I could enjoy the party with my animals from 11:00pm before going outside at midnight to watch the real fireworks.
To be honest I preferred the virtual fireworks. It was less cold and included dancing animals and jazz music. 🤭
The holidays ended up marking what's probably my AC exit until at least Bunny Day. Too stressful trying to get it in on Christmas Eve while busy, only to get there late, and find animals were sleeping , and I couldn't deliver their gifts despite upending real life just to get to the game, on the day the game wanted, the game decides I'm too late? And the reindeer just took the bag, sorry chum, and I get no sleigh. That set a sour tone.
But worse, despite faithfully playing between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the balloon gods decided to bestow me only ONE Festive DIY. I ended up decorating the whole island in light-up reindeer and menorahs because no other season DIY's appeared, and Timmy refuses to sell Festive decor items. So my plans to replace halloween with christmas decorations ended up with duplicates of exactly one item everywhere. How many hours do I have to randomly wander around waiting for balloons just to get the recipes?
I didn't even bother with New Years. Meh.
@Anti-Matter After the sleigh incident I finally did the time travel. It wasn't going to sit right unless I got my sleigh......
@Clyde_Radcliffe Wait, you mean the dancing animals and jazz music I saw in real life weren't really there?
@NEStalgia I have the candles but I didn't get a light up reindeer. I've been making a perfect snowboy nearly every day and I thought those were the DIY for the holidays, I rarely shoot down balloons, that game mechanic sucks.
Agree w/ @ryancraddock - at least I think I agree w/ him - that the holiday events should have happened regardless of how far along somebody was in the game. I can understand why the stupid poorly programmed game didn't do that b/c it needs the full resident services to set up the clock but they should have just done the event anyway and gone back to normal after. I had already thought that doing toy day - ie Christmas - the day before Christmas was bad for kids getting the game for Christmas. If they didn't want to do it on Christmas for whatever reason they could have moved it to January 6th and done the whole 12 days of Christmas thing.
I got lucky in that I made my wife an account around 6PM NYE and we just did NY on my account. She'll never play the game on her own anyway, just her avatar will run around w/ my avatar on special occasions.
@rjejr Yeah, the snowboys thing is for the "frosty" winter/ice set. The "festive" set for which all the ornament hunting on the trees is for seems to be only available from balloons and no other way. Unlike Halloween where you can get the items either from balloons dropping DIY recipes, OR, buy them at egregious prices, once a day at Timmy's, the Festive set is inexplicably not for sale at Timmy's. He instead has toys for 14 whole days, and then the other 14 days of the cycle he seems to sell kerosene heaters and menorahs exclusively. Inexplicably he seems unable to sell the festive set items. Meaning the only way to get them is to craft them. And the only way to craft them is for the RNG to shine upon you with balloon drops. I didn't play for too many hours on end, but I got handfulls of balloons, seemingly far less than in the summer, and all but one of them contained items that were not Festive set recipes.
It's immensely frustrating. I still maintain the game is designed like a mobile game where the main drive is acquiring "engagement time", where everything is a gatcha or lootbox, just minus the credit card link. For no actual reason, unless it's to prime us for the sequel where there is a credit card link.
Though Doug Bowser going on about "UGC" may explain it that the whole design of the game serves little purpose beyond driving social features. Or....mobile design by another name.
Realised this after me and my sis teamed up to buy mum a switch and NH this year after I introduced her to new leaf and let her (permanently it seems) borrow my 3DS for 2020's lockdowns.
Though it wasn't a biggie for us personally because she couldn't leave her NL villagers behind for new year so just celebrated with them and she just came to our developed NH towns.
Surely they get to play them this year? What a harsh article.
@NEStalgia I happily forgot what UGC stands for. Oh yeah, user generated content. I did feel that way once Mabel's opened and I realized the reason the game exists is for people to exchange shirt designs, b/c that's really the only thing that is user generated. It's not Minecraft, we aren't building replicas of MOMA.
You also reminded me that 1 of the reasons for my lack of balloons of late is the musical jingle bells background sound they layered onto the outdoor background music that sounds way too much like the shooting stars notification sound. Between the blizzard wind, ching ching, and snowflakes everywhere I was never going to notice the balloon wind hint. I'm using 5.1 surround, but the balloons still require too much effort to hear unless they are directly over me. Basically if I don't see them, or occasionally their shadow, it ain't happening.
Worst thing I learned over the weekend, this is by far the worst multiplayer experience I've ever come across. It's like somebody played Super Mario Galaxy and said - How do we make a multiplayer game play experience that's worse than this? It's agonizing. Any and all awards it won as "family" game should be returned. And I'm, nto talking about the horrendous 1 island per console decision, even I've gotten over that at this point, 1 island per family, I kinda "get it" even it it sucks and it's stupid and I don't like it, but I can see some reasoning behind it. But the lack of controls in 2 player is worse than I could have imagined. Amiibo Festival has more control, and there isn't any in that game. I won it, and I've played it.
Back to remote learning, later.
@rjejr Yeah. That depresses me. I don't do social gaming, I don't do exchanging, and user generated shirt designs have always seemed bluntly stupid to me, in part because I don't have an artistic bone in my body. Nintendo players seem to all be 15-19 year old girls that can draw entire anime strips on the back of a napkin and doodle it in Splatoon. Me? If I drew a stick figure you'd probably need help identifying the subject of the composition, and may or may not mistake it as any number of offensive symbols or a pirate treasure map.
Much as I dislike Minecraft, I think I'd prefer the MOMA replicas.
And yeah, same with the balloons. I'm actually using stereo sound, and professional monitor headphones - the higher end ones with the Tesla drivers ** (** Not actually related to Tesla effects) - They're accurate to a fault. Still can't hear the balloons in the mix. It's not a bad sound design, just too many channels in the mix to identify sounds like that readily.)
The thing that kills me about multiplayer is even if you're, like, totes BFFs 4 realsies.....you can't DO anything. No moving furniture. Objects. Decorating...why even bother going to someone's island if you can't actually DO anything while there other than fish together?
@NEStalgia
STEP #1: KNOW WHERE YOUR BALLOONS ARE COMING FROM
Balloons won’t always fly in from the same side of the island. The side they spawn in on changes after sundown, so check to make sure you know where the the balloons are currently spawning from. For example, after you see one in your town moving from left to right, you’ll know that balloons are spawning over the ocean on the left side of your island.
You can safely assume that whatever side they come in on, it’ll be flipped after sundown, so keep that in mind.
STEP #2: CHECK THE TIME
Balloons spawn on every fourth or ninth minute. Some sample times would be: 3:04, 5:39, 10:04, or 12:29.
STEP #3: RUN UP AND DOWN THE BEACH
Even though the balloons spawn on the fourth and ninth minute, they may not be visible until the fifth or 10th minute because of the time it takes for them to reach the beach. Just keep running up and down the beach, paying extra close attention to the clock. When the last minute reads five or zero, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to spot a balloon.
STEP #4: SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON AND REPEAT
Once you shoot the balloon down, you can stay at the beach and wait for the clock to hit a 4 or a 9 or you can run around town and come back.
I have this game still wrapped up from the deal i got recently on a Switch lite bundle.
Not played it though, not really bothered about missing out on anything.
Just play the game, have fun, and catch the special events in the coming year. This whole idea that you have to rush and experience everything it has to offer immediately misses the whole point of Animal Crossing. It's supposed to take at least a year to see everything for the first time.
@NEStalgia Even fishing together still is kind of lame as all the fish go into the L&F box, so you are space limited. And if the pole breaks for player 2 I don't think they can make a new one, b/c they really can't do anything.
The one thing we can do, and after 300 days and 150 hours the only reason I got my wife to play the game for an hour, is take photos. Since 2020 was the sux and we rarely left the house, we had to live vicariously 1 night thru our avatars.
Here's a select few.
Next time she "plays" w/ me will probably be Valentine's Day as it isn't looking too good for us going to to celebrate by then.
To Nintendolife
I have an amiibo to sell you
https://i.imgur.com/RJxKgFl.jpg
@rjejr I never left the house other than work before 2020, either, so it's pretty much an average year but without the infuriating commute that will end up locking me away for murder eventually, anyway.
I think if you "best friend" someone they can use outdoor crafting tables in your island. I think....
@NEStalgia My wife's avatar can use my DIY tables, but, and this is the game breaking you're all fired but, the 2 people playing together have to switch back and forth who is the leader. Only the leader can do stuff. Other players are limited to:
Left stick moves
X button changes your favorite tools
A button fishes, nets, shakes, think that's it
Y picks up stuff, sends it to lost & found
Camera button on the joycon will take pics
I think that's it. I simply can't understand why other players can't open their pockets, talk to villagers, change clothes.
And other players can't just join by grabbing a controller, they need to first start a game on their own own account and save.
Truly screwy.
Let me know when you go postal, I'll look for you on the news. I am happy my wife doesn't have to commute during the pandemic. About 90 minutes each way, so 3 hours a day, and almost $400 a month. Gonna sux when she goes back.
@rjejr ahh local multiplayer. Isn't the answer obvious? It's designed to make her get her own switch, and her own copy of acnh, so she can wifi to your island and use her own pockets and tools where it all works mostly as expected, except neither of you can move any objects at all.
Maybe it's better with a link cable.
Heh I'll use my one phone call on you . Commutes like that should be illegal. Jobs are 10 minutes from you, otherwise you get welfare for life. Though at least there's transit you can pay for there. Nothing but gridlock and road rage here. And when it gets too gridlocked they remove the shoulder, repaint the lanes narrower, squeeze in a third lane and more/longer lights and declare more capacity as they build 500 in more homes on the stretch and convert the last 5 retail spaces within half an hour into high density apartments, offices, or medical centers.
It's not just about the "event" where something specific things happen. You also didn't get any decoration, xmas trees and so on. Also after xmas the villagers complained that they didn't receive any gifts - although you couldn't give them any, which is an indicator that it wasn't thought through for new users.
@NEStalgia "repaint the lanes narrower, squeeze in a third lane"
Don't forget the HOV lane. And the electric vehicle lane. And the bus lane.
On the bright side, maybe you'll get lucky and the entire country will burn down this afternoon. I'd say it's 50-50. 🤣
The de-evolution will be televised.
@rjejr We don't do bus lanes. We have no busses. There's like one that goes down one street once an hour or so...but sometimes just skips an hour. You have to take that half an hour to connect to something else for 20 min to conect to something else in the opposite direction to get the hour long connection to get where you're going to get where you're going. And since nobody doesn't own an SUV (except me) I don't see electric vehicles mattering here.
I'm still dreaming of the all-automated roads. I want to get rid of user-controlled cars permanently and forever, and I want it yesterday. Throw the whole national treasury at it. Conquer China and throw their treasury at it too. I don't care. I wannit and I wannit now and I'm an American so I'm entitled to it!
I wouldn't mind the latter outcome either, though....that's good too.
@NEStalgia How do you live in a place w/ no buses where everybody isn't driving a pick-up truck?
We bought an SUV in August in part b/c I got sick of being the last sedan standing in a see of SUVs. Not too many pick-ups here. Lots of Trump bumper stickers so it isn't all fun, but I worry less about shotguns in SUVs than pickups.
Oh look the "law & order blue lives matter" Trump supporters are destroying the country's capital. Good times.
@rjejr Outside the urban cores, there are more or less no busses. problem is they've turned suburbia into more urban core, but added no transportation or any plans to do so. I just want to live in the middle of nowhere where I never have to see humans. Ever. Drop me off in a Con Agra corn field and spray me with Monsanto's latest nutritional suppliment. At least there's no SUVs involved.
The capital was destroyed almost a century ago. I'm not sure anything else makes it worse. Carpet bombing would be a net improvement. Chloroform is also useful pesticide. I don't do left/right politics. They're all equal thieves and liars, just with different sugar daddies as patrons.
@NEStalgia Yeah but, you still gotta watch.
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