Animal Crossinghas been one of Nintendo’s best-selling franchises for years now. From the personal relationships you may create with villagers, to the city/island building aspect, and the creative freedom you have, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. But with Animal Crossing: New Horizons being the series’ 5th main entry, you’d think that they would’ve fixed one of the biggest persisting problems with the series: a lack of endgame content.
In the older titles, after you upgrade your house and donate all the bugs and fish to the museum, you’re left a bit listless - wanting more in that kind of ‘is that it?’ way rather than the compelling moreish way. Animal Crossing: New Horizons tries its best to counter this, but it ends up missing the mark.
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Endgame-wise, you have your staple task of filling the museum, catching all the bugs and fish, and paying off your loans. New ones were added to New Horizons, such as completing all theNook Mileschallenges on your NookPhone. Even though they’re introduced at the beginning of the game, they do play a big part in the endgame since there is a plethora of tasks you’re able to’t finish within a month or two. Completing these challenges rewards you with Nook Miles which allows you to visit random Islands to collect resources and talk to villagers you may want to recruit.
Some of these challenges are tasks like talking to a certain amount of villagers, collecting fruit, and building certain items,while others are more extensive tasks such as expanding your home six times or buying 300 items from Tom Nook.The issue with this system is that if you’re already happy with the residents you have and have completed everything, there isn’t enough incentive to do these challenges beyond blind completionism.
The Mystery Islands themselves aren’t enough of an endgame experience. Interaction on these islands is extremely limited since they’re essentially the same as each other. Their main use is to collect resources, but that can be done on your island. Sure you can meet new villagers on them, however, it’s pointless as there’s a limit to how many you can have. If you’re already happy with your current cuddly friends, why would you need to go? When you have all the items, resources, and islanders you need, the Mystery Islands become obsolete.
If the system were to take a page fromStardew Valleyand reward players with items or in-game money, it would motivate you to complete challenges. In Stardew Valley there’s a community center where you’re able to donate items complete a specific section of the center. Each section has something called a Bundle where if you donate the specific items it asks for, you get rewards for doing so and unlock new key in-game items (like the Greenhouse, which allows you to grow crops from any season all year round).
If Animal Crossing were to do the same thing by having a center that residents could go to and relax, then it would keep you busy in the endgame. It would be better if something akin to bundles was implemented as well, allowing players to unlock more locations or features that they could use. It would be a step-up compared topast Animal Crossing titles.
The Island Designer NookPhone app gives you free rein over your island, letting you customize it how you see fit. It lets you create walls, paths, and waterfalls. Unfortunately, this feature gets boring after a while. What do you do after you’ve created the perfect island for yourself? The option to demolish your island is available, but you’d lose everything you worked hard to accomplish. Your house, museum, collection, items, and residents are all gone.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a one-island-per-device restriction. This means no matter how many people are registered on a single Nintendo Switch, only one person can own an island at a time. This feature didn’t help New Horizons' longevity. With the one-island restriction lifted, you would be able to create not only a new character, but another island, giving you more reason to keep playing and experimenting with different ideas.
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The series is known for having real-life holidays and events within the game. As wholesome and charming as that may be, the reality is that many people would be celebrating with family and friends on those days rather than playing the game. Having events that aren’t just related to real-world holidays could also give you more to do in the endgame. Occasions such as a mini carnival, a sports festival, or even a hotdog-eating competition would add some freshness to the game.
Having a minigame mode that you could play with friends online could spice things up too. Activities such as fishing contests, or even tag could be worth adding. As it stands, the multiplayer mode has been the same for years and nothing has changed with it.
Nintendo ended up taking one big step forward, but also one big step back. Last November, the Happy Home Paradise DLC was released. While it did give the game an influx of players to the title, Nintendo also stated that this would be the game’s last major content update, so any hopes of an endgame improvement will need to wait until the next outing.
