Animal Crossing and Other Big Nintendo Switch Games Get Strange New Updates

Nintendo Switch updates for Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2, ARMS, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons have been released tonight. While patch notes have been released for all four of these games, Nintendo’s website offers the exact same wording for all of them. According to the company, “several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.” Given the age of ARMS, Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Maker 2 in particular, most users probably wouldn’t have expected to see any more updates, and there hasn’t been any kind of chatter on social media about any problems. Once players have downloaded the latest updates, the games should run the following versions:

Super Mario Maker 2– Version 3.0.2

Splatoon 2– Version 5.5.1

ARMS– Version 5.4.1

Animal Crossing: New Horizons– Version 2.0.6

Animal Crossing: New Horizons received an update earlier this year, but it’s by far the most recent game that Nintendo has updated tonight. Splatoon 2 hasn’t received a patch in more than a year. Meanwhile, Super Mario Maker 2 hasn’t seen any kind of update since July of 2020. To emphasize how strange these updates are, ARMS has not been updated since all the way back in September of 2018! Fans of all four of these games can expect a prompt to update before accessing any online features.

Nintendo has always been known as a secretive company, and it’s not unusual for Nintendo Switch games to get vague updates. As such, we probably shouldn’t expect to hear any kind of news from the company about what prompted these updates. It’s certainly odd for four different first-party games to get updates on the same night, with the exact same language, but fans will just have to speculate about what it is that prompted this; it’s possible even more could release in the next few hours! Whatever the case may be, hopefully tonight’s updates will make sure that ARMS, Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons continue to operate as expected.

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