Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Image: Nintendo

Nintendo has released countless updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but for some players, it's still not enough.

With this in mind, there are rumours currently floating around the internet about a possible update in the future that could lead to a "huge" island expansion. A recent datamine of the game's 1.10.0 patch notes has led to theories that the southern side of the island - or at least the beach section, might receive an upgrade at some point later down the line.

Here's the associated value that's been increased:

"mSouthShoreBaseline.f32: 500.00000 was changed to mSouthShoreBaseline.f32: 1000.00000" (source: dodocodes.com)

Adjustments have also been made to the game's camera files which is now fueling speculation about a second smaller island potentially being added to the game, or perhaps even a dedicated area for swimming and diving activities.

While this all sounds rather exciting, it "may be nothing more than Nintendo testing a few things behind the scenes", according to YouTuber Mayor Mori, who provides some added context, courtesy of dedicated Animal Crossing dataminers:

"The adjustments made to the Southshore baselines has been given some context, and it seems that this particular adjustment isn't relevant to the main island, at least for now. It turns out that the outdoor camera parameters are used in several instances such as on the New Horizons island or a mystery island tour for example, which obviously all use different values given the area surrounding them differ in size. And in the instance where this adjustment to the south shoreline was increased - was adjusted as part of some camera settings, they were likely only used for testing, rather than for the area of the main island itself. Furthermore, it turns out that the 'm' Southshore baseline value for the main New Horizons island has always been set to this higher value. Basically, the value has only changed in the settings, though were likely used for testing and now matches the value already set for the island if that makes sense. And if this is true, suggests nothing is being adjusted to make space for anything on the island, at the moment.

...The rumours about this feature coming in a future update doesn't seem to carry any weight."

Although we might not necessarily be seeing any island expansions any time soon, would you like to see Nintendo increase the size of the main island in New Horizons, or perhaps even add some other islands in the future? Share your thoughts below.

[source youtu.be, via comicbook.com, gamesradar.com]