Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update Is Adding Dreaming and Island Backups

A new update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been announced that'll add three key features: Fireworks shows, dreams that allow you to visit other players' islands, and a system for backing up and restoring islands in case anything happens to them. This next update is Wave 2 of the Summer Update plan and is scheduled to release on July 30th with the features launching then and continuing afterwards. Another update has already been announced for a Fall 2020 release, and while we don't know exactly what that one will entail, a pumpkin glimpsed in the teaser trailers hints at a bunch of Halloween-themed content.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons' update was previewed in the trailer that showed off the different aspects of this next update coming at the end of the month. Starting in August, we'll begin seeing fireworks displays in New Horizons along with some sort of attraction called Redd's Raffle that features the swindling salesman. Like other New Horizons events that happen on a schedule, you can expect these fireworks shows to happen every Sunday throughout August.

After the preview of the fireworks we saw a trippy dream sequence where players are able to take a snooze and be visited by Luna, a character who will help players travel to other islands from around the world in their sleep. Judging from the preview, it looks like these visits might be for sightseeing only since you don't actually know the player you're visiting, so it looks like we might not be harvesting resources in our sleep.

[Announcement]
🎆 Weekly fireworks shows in August!
🛌 Visit other players’ islands in a dream!
💾 Island Backup & Restoration

The #AnimalCrossing: New Horizons Summer Update – Wave 2 lights up the sky on 7/30. #ACNH pic.twitter.com/aqxeH6utcJ

— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) July 28, 2020

[Announcement]
The Island Backup & Restoration Service allows #NintendoSwitchOnline members to upload their game data online & recover data in the event of loss or damage. The ability to transfer #ACNH save data is planned for later this year.https://t.co/Op0ZJeKQ95 pic.twitter.com/FUPKaKkZvX

— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) July 28, 2020

The final notable change in the update isn't a gameplay feature itself but is instead a system for backing up players' islands and restoring them. That feature will be live starting on July 30th, and both it and the dream visits will require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to make use of.

A Fall 2020 update will follow this one, so look for that some time within the coming months to see what's planned towards the end of the year.