Nintendo announced at Direct on September 23 that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will receive an update in November and Animal Crossing Direct in October.

While Nintendo is hiding more details until next month, fans of the series have likely noticed a really big hint of what's to come: fan-favorite NPC Brewster.

Brewster first joined the series in Animal Crossing: Wild World, where he owned a coffee shop called The Roost in the basement of the museum where K.K. Slider played his songs. the very brief look we got showed entering The Roost in the existing New Horizons museum. The last image also featured an illustration of Brewster followed by the words "and more!"

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released in March 2020 during the first wave of global blockades due to Covid-19. Since then, the game has received a steady stream of updates, mostly related to seasonal events and holiday celebrations. Nintendo said it is working on new content for the game this summer, which has piqued fan interest beyond just throwing up vacation patches.

And New Horizons has been a huge success for Nintendo, far surpassing other franchise entries and becoming one of the best-selling Switch titles.

But lately, not everything has been sunny among the Animal Crossing fandom. At launch, many players were simultaneously excited about new features such as terraforming and outdoor placement, while disappointed that essentials such as vacation and some characters were nowhere to be found.

A year on, there's still a lot to be said, especially for anyone familiar with previous Animal Crossing games. Brewster and his coffee shop have been absent so far, Resetti has been relegated to rescue, Gyroids has gone missing, and Kapp'n and his family living on the island never showed up, even though New Horizons is taking place between different islands. The main store of Nook's Crnny only has one early game upgrade, even though each of the older games has a lot of changes with increasing demands to unlock. People are still hoping for some quality-of-life improvements such as mass manufacturing or getting inventory straight from stock.

Players were able to acquire new residents and Animal Crossing items with the Sanrio amiibo bundle, but this required an additional purchase and many bundles sold out quickly. Animal Crossing is certainly not short of fans, but it looks like the honeymoon is finally over. Hopefully, today's Nintendo Direct news can indicate a renewed interest in keeping the game up and keeping fans happy.

Sep-24-2021