Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Version 3.0 & Switch 2 Edition

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of my absolute favourite games from the last generation. Despite this, I was very disappointed when Nintendo announced Version 3.0 and the Switch 2 Edition in the autumn. For two reasons. The first is that it almost certainly means we can forget about a brand new game in the series within the next few years, as Nintendo wants this one to live on for a while longer.

The second is that the content looked to be on the meagre side, with a hotel with rooms to decorate being the single biggest new feature. Of course, I enjoy crafting cosy themed rooms in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but I have to admit that the concept is starting to feel a bit overused. In addition to this, there are several so-called Quality of Life improvements, where it's finally possible to craft several items at once and you don't have to carry all the raw materials with you when you want to craft something.

It should be noted that this is free, so it's difficult to complain about what you get. However, there is also an extra addition in the form of a Switch 2 update, which does cost money. Here, too, there is little news, with 4K resolution and support for Switch 2 Camera being the most notable additions. The latter includes the ability to see the people you are playing with, which can be used with 12 people in the Switch 2 Edition (compared to eight in the regular Animal Crossing: New Horizons).

This is not something that sets the world on fire either, and when it comes to the graphical upgrade, the package undeniably makes the Switch 2 version significantly sharper and the colours feel better, but that's about it. This means that it still runs at 30 frames per second, which may not be a dealbreaker in a slow game like this, but it is disappointing that they didn't fix something like that.

In addition to this, Nintendo is very proud of its Switch 2 microphone. They use it in the Switch 2 Edition as a megaphone you can use to call your island's inhabitants. A fairly innocuous feature that on paper could be fun, but unfortunately it works rather poorly and the dogs stare at me wide-eyed as I increasingly frustratedly yell all sorts of names at my TV. The same feature was in Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS... and actually worked better.

Well, it's still nice that a hotel has been built on my little island (which I always name Iacon in all Animal Crossing titles). It is home to Kapp'n and his family, and elevator music versions of his music are played in the lobby. Of course, there are also new things to buy, and Nintendo decided that a third currency was needed, so now there are also Tickets to collect in addition to the basic currencies of Bells and Pokis that were introduced in Happy Home Paradise.

In the hotel, you are then tasked with decorating rooms, where you usually have two themes to choose from and a much larger selection of furnishings than you previously had access to. You build walls as you want them, put up pillars, build benches, and the like, and hopefully end up with a nice theme. It's not a bad design at all, but I still find it hard to get excited after having decorated so many rooms in the game before. It should be said, however, that this is a little easier to do thanks to the mouse control with Joy-Con 2.

The hotel also has several rooms (where you are limited to only two per day), so there is a lot to keep track of. Guests then move into the hotel, and you can interact with them, but unfortunately, you cannot ask them to move into your town, which would have been a golden opportunity to get a little more momentum going with the inhabitants.

Another feature Nintendo has added in the free update is Resetti's Reset Service. It does pretty much what it sounds like and simply allows you to reset things. You can strip your entire island, remove flowers, clear beaches, or empty certain areas. For those who like to redesign their island from time-to-time, it's obviously a handy tool and I'm glad it's there, but it's really a trivial thing.

All in all, I find it difficult to recommend anyone to get the Switch 2 Edition unless they know they play New Horizon a lot and just want the same thing, but a little bit better. And the free content from Version 3.0 is, as I said, free, but it really feels like Nintendo has just tried to create content with a lot of grind to make it take time rather than be entertaining, and the Quality of Life stuff really should have been included from the start. No, this isn't enough.