Somewhere in my head, I was expecting the worst. I’ve been playing Animal Crossing long enough across its various iterations to remember a time when villagers would wish violent ill on your existence if you displeased them enough, and when abandoning your town for just a few days would cause a weed outbreak serious enough to make a gardener sob. So part of me was anticipating chaos and disaster – rampant foliage, rioting villagers, blazing buildings, a wild-eyed Isabelle perched on a pile of furry corpses – when I logged back into New Horizons for the first time in four years this week. And as I fired up my old save and prepared to return to Honaloha, I was braced.
Needless to say, it was a bit of an anticlimax to log in and discover that – beyond a couple of bugs in my basement, a blinking mailbox, and a slightly unruly haircut – there were barely any signs four years had passed at all. Rather, I returned to a Honaloha almost exactly as I left it, eerily suspended in the reverie of an approaching Christmas – all twinkling trees and jaunty wreaths – circa 2021. At least Avery and Zucker were happy to see me.
Why am I back? That’ll be in anticipation of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ imminent 3.0 update, which includes a substantial fist of free new features – most notably a new hotel to manage – alongside a bunch of Switch 2 enhancements and additions Nintendo is charging a fiver for. Plus, it’s winter, the gaming calendar is quiet (albeit not for long), and the prospect of popping back to check in on my little, long-abandoned island – buoyed on by a mix of curiosity and faint nostalgia – was a surprisingly appealing one.
Famously, Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ arrival in 2020 coincided, fatefully, with the global coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lengthy lockdowns. For many, its cosy corner of virtual freedom – of serene beaches and peaceful meadows, of outdoor frolics and bustling community – served as an unexpected lifeline in those troubling times. A comforting escape, a place to congregate with friends; and I’m sure there’ll be some people facing more complicated recollections should 3.0 be enough to tempt them back in.
For me, New Horizons doesn’t have quite the same associations, so my return this week (the first since the game’s Happy Home Paradise expansion briefly brought me back at the tail-end of 2021) has felt much less complicated, more like a visit to an old home after a long time away. And looking at everything now with fresh eyes, the once-familiar turned unfamiliar again, it’s clear there’s work to be done! I’m already annoyed by the needlessly convoluted footpaths I previously laid, and goodness knows what I was thinking with some of my decor choices. I’ve got stacks of abandoned furniture littering the ground, and worse, the repressed memories of Chops have all come flooding back – yes, the annoyingly little shit can still bloody do one.
I’ve barely been back in Honaloha for an hour and already I’ve got a lengthy to-do list forming in my brain. That flower bed by the lamppost needs to go, for starters, and that pretty Japanese arch, I now realise, does NOT mix well with my weird stonehenge. On the other side of the island, there’s a picnic table blocking my Grecian plaza, and there’s a bush I’m convinced would look better shifted over a square. And of course I’m still plotting Chops’ downfall. What I’m saying is there’s a lot to get sorted to make things tolerable for any kind of meaningful 3.0 return, and unexpectedly, it already feels like I’m on the cusp of getting sucked back in.
Whether 3.0 will result in an extended return to Honaloha though, I’m not yet sure. New Horizons, with its glacial dripfeed of fundamental features, always felt a little too insubstantial to properly hook me (and I never quite got over its disappointing lack of personality, with the villager sass of old smoothed over lest it offend), making for a fairly dull series return – and I doubt I would have stuck around for so long if it wasn’t for the whole lockdown zeitgeist thing. So as intrigued as I am about hotel management, and as giddy as I am about getting more room to store the junk I left on the floor, I’m skeptical my interest will last long enough for those Christmas decorations to come out again. That, I suppose, might change if Nintendo has grander plans for New Horizons beyond 3.0, but right now, whatever the future holds, it’s surprisingly nice to be back among old haunts and old friends. Stupid moustachioed pig aside.