Nintendo Promises Continuous Updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a big success for Nintendo, and players can look forward to the game receive a whole lot of support in the coming months. Earlier today, Nintendo released its fiscal earnings report for investors, which showed successful sales despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One major reason for Nintendo’s success is Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which has outsold the previous two Animal Crossing games in just the first six weeks. According to the report, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold 13.41 million copies, which is more than either Animal Crossing: Wild World or Animal Crossing: New Leaf sold during those games’ entire lifespans.

Nintendo isn’t resting on Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ laurels either. Nintendo also noted in its earnings report that it will be supporting Animal Crossing: New Horizons with “continuous updates.” While we’ve already seen some of the early updates in the form of the Bunny Day update and the addition of Redd and Leif as new vendors, it seems that Nintendo is gearing up for Animal Crossing: New Horizons to be one of its marquee games over the coming months.

Of course, the Animal Crossing franchise is all about cyclical changes, with the bugs, fish, and even certain characters coming and going depending on the month. And while Nintendo is using these continuous updates to add a mix of new seasonal and perennial features, one interesting thing about these updates is how the developers have also used them to address community feedback. For instance, the Bunny Day event received a major nerf after players complained how overwhelming it was, and bug spawn rates were also tweaked in an attempt to “balance” the economy and address some players using exploits to earn Bells at a disproportionate rate.

Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s most recent update added Leif as a vendor that sells rare plants and bushes, and Redd as a vendor that sells a mix of real and fake artwork. Additionally, seasonal events like a “Wedding Season” event are also coming to the game in the very near future.