Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Review

This review looks at Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, which includes the base Animal Crossing: New Horizons game and the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade pack. The upgrade pack is also sold separately. Here, we’ll focus on the additions the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition brings, while our original New Horizons review still applies to most of the game.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a very odd game to review. At $8 AUD, it’s one of the cheapest l Switch 2 Editions available, but it also does the least in terms of meaningful content upgrades. It’s also a different value proposition depending on whether you play docked or in handheld mode, but at the same time, it’s only $8 AUD for the upgrade, so it’s hard to be too upset about it.

Another complication is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition launched at the exact same time as the Version 3.0.0 update. That update added a huge number of quality-of-life improvements, and if Nintendo had locked those behind a paid upgrade it would have made around 40 million people very angry, so we’re glad they didn’t.

Version 3.0.0 update mini-review

If you’ve been away from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, or even if you play it every day and have been craving something new, the Version 3.0.0 update adds a whole slew of new gameplay features, quality-of-life improvements, and items to the game.

The biggest new addition is the Hotel, which over a number of days has you designing a series of rooms for tourists to come and visit. Not only do they stay in your rooms, and the game really does not care how in-depth you make them as they will happily love a single chair in a blank room, but the tourists also walk around your island, donning your island’s official gear that you can design yourself.

Other big and long-awaited changes include the ability to sidestep as you move around, which is particularly helpful when terraforming, and the option to craft multiple items at once. Resetti can also reset parts of your island, or even the entire thing. If you want to start afresh but not necessarily destroy your items, you can create an entirely new island via Slumber Islands, complete with everything you have unlocked. Your friends can then visit you there instead.

If you play exclusively in handheld mode, you’re also missing out on most of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition benefits. Nintendo quietly added an update that bumps the handheld resolution up to 1080p even without the Switch 2 Edition upgrade. On top of that, mouse controls aren’t available in handheld mode, as the Joy-Con are attached to the console. They’re only usable in tabletop mode with detached Joy-Con.

One noticeable improvement, however, is faster loading. It’s still not instant, you’ll still think “that loading screen took a while” but it happens far less often. Animal Crossing: New Horizons already loaded faster on the Switch 2 without the upgrade, but the Switch 2 Edition shaves off a few more seconds.
All that said, there are some genuinely good upgrades here. The biggest is the resolution bump for docked play, which takes the game all the way up to a 4K presentation. Nintendo is using upscaling to get there, and there are still a few jaggies around, but the game pops just that little bit more. New Horizons was already, as the kids say, “low key” a good-looking game, with lots of depth-of-field effects, subtle animation flourishes, and a generally pleasing presentation.

The other major addition is mouse controls, though they come with some frustrating caveats. They work well for placing and moving items, but the moment you open a menu, you’re forced back to button controls. This is especially annoying when laying out the new hotel rooms added in Version 3.0.0. Want to dump a bunch of items and then rearrange them? Nope, mouse for movement, buttons for menus, constantly switching back and forth. It’s almost enough to make you not bother at all. That said, being able to create artwork using mouse controls means the feature isn’t completely pointless.

There’s also the addition of the Megaphone, which is supposed to help you locate villagers on your island, but if they’re indoors, good luck as it doesn’t work then. And after apparently four years of playing this game, it’s not like I remember any of my villagers’ names anyway. There’s also a new mode that allows up to 12 players on an island instead of the previous limit of eight, but you’ll need to start your online session in this expanded mode, which locks out original Switch owners. I’ve never had more than a handful of people on my island at once, and I can’t imagine the chaos of up to 12 people constantly arriving and leaving.

There’s no better time to get back into Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It’s hot outside, everything is too expensive, and the real reason to return right now is the free 3.0.0 update, which adds genuinely excellent quality-of-life improvements and new content to the game (for free). If you’ve got a 4K TV, play with a lot of people, and care deeply about getting your home designs just right, then the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade will serve you well. But for most people, you might be able to just skip it.

Rating: 3.5/5