Animal Crossing: New Horizons update coming this week with new merchants, museum expansion, and more

Apparently it’s a big week for free updates for Nintendo games — hot off the heels of the announcement of Super Mario Maker 2’s last major update, Nintendo has revealed the next big thing for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The new update, dubbed by Nintendo the “April Free Update,” is absolutely packed with adorable new content for everyone to enjoy. First on the list is a slew of new events: Nature Day later this month, May Day in early May (duh), International Museum Day later in May, and Wedding Season throughout the whole month of June. Each of these events comes with a whole host of activities, items, and NPCs. Which brings us to the second major addition: new merchants!

In addition to characters like Flick, Kicks, Label, and CJ, players will soon be able to encounter everyone’s favourite sloth Leif, who’ll sell the player a wide range of landscaping supplies like trees, flowers, and all new shrubs. You may also come across the seafaring bandit Jolly Redd, upon his all new pirate ship the Treasure Trawler. Here, you’ll be able to buy precious works of art — and if it’s anything like previous games with Redd, plenty of fakes — to donate to the museum. Which brings us to our third point…

… the museum is being expanded! The already massive museum is getting a new wing for artwork that you buy from Redd, gorgeously displaying it much like the beautiful displays for bugs, fish, and fossils.

The April Free Update is scheduled to become available for download on Thursday, the 23rd of April, most likely in the afternoon or evening. You can watch the full video showcasing it all below.