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I’ve seen this pop up in a couple of areas, and I wanted to share my thoughts and discuss why this might be a possible outcome. The last Animal Crossing title was in 2020 for the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo stopped updates after 2021. This means we’ve been nearly 3 years without any new content. Is that enough time to get a game ready? Well, maybe, but let’s look over the history of the series before we talk about that.
A Look Back at the Past
It’s worth noting that I won’t be discussing the spinoff titles. This will be focused on the main games, and also this is for North America, so release dates may not match exactly with your country if you are living elsewhere.
Animal Crossing made it’s debut on the GameCube back in 2002, and it was a smash hit. Something about being in debt to a raccoon and having cute villagers really made the game addictive. Being in debt to Tom Nook was alright because of the sheer joy when you actually paid him off. Only to get an upgraded house and start it all over again. Here’s a trailer if anyone wants to see that.
Next came Animal Crossing: Wild World, which was the DS game in 2005. This is the game I have the least experience in because I only played for a couple of hours.
Then we had the Wii game, City Folk, in 2008 which was a step above the original in many ways. Being able to travel away from your small community to a larger city with many more shops really brought a different feel to the series at that point. Oh you didn’t see what you wanted at Nook’s Cranny? Hop on a train and see what’s available elsewhere.
New Leaf came out in 2012 for the 3DS and would be a great entry into the series for 8 years. Then we arrived at the final game, New Horizions for the Nintendo Switch.
New Horizons
I want to talk briefly about how different this game was compared to all the previous ones that came before it. You and two other villagers along with Tom Nook and his two sons occupied a vacant island, building from nothing and creating a civilization. You choose where the residents put their houses, and then start to grow your economy slowly but surely.
Very little was handed to you. This game forces you to learn to craft tools such as your shovel, net, fishing rod and more. It’s still a very simple way to get your tools even after they’re available in the store. The crafting expands to wallpaper, rugs, decorations and such.
The reason I mention this is so we can talk about the next section, which is…
What Will the Next Game Be?
This is all speculation, so take this next part with a grain of salt please. I would think that perhaps they’ll go the opposite direction, and have us in a city setting. Perhaps we could even build the city up, like we did the island in New Horizions. The city would look similar to something that City Folk had, but would allow us to grow it.
We could even go back to the use of trains, since they’ve been a staple in the series since the beginning. Perhaps this would be a stretch, but even include a mall this time. Something where multiple shops could be in, with smaller stuff such as hair accessories. They could also introduce bracelets and gloves.
Conclusion
I think there’s a lot that could be done with the next game, and I’m very eager to see something from Nintendo on the subject. All of my predictions could be wrong, but I’m hoping they aren’t and we see this game launching alongside the new system or following it very soon afterward.
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