Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo’s well known titles alongside Zelda and Pokemon. Due to Animal Crossing being one of the big names of Nintendo there have been several games made. The first global release was on the GameCube in 2002. Since then every few years a new game has been released. The most recent game released under the name is Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the first Nintendo Switch, which came out in March of 2020. The game stopped all new developments in late 2021, with their 2.0 update. Fans of the game didn’t expect anything new and awaited the news for a new installment in the series, as was the trend for the past two decades. Instead, unexpectedly, in October of 2025 Nintendo announced a new update for New Horizons set for January 15th, 2026. This was huge news to Animal Crossing fans because Nintendo had stated that 2.0 was going to be the “last major update” for the game.
The new update brings a lot of new features to the game. The main addition is the hotel. The hotel is similar to the DLC, Happy Home Paradise, which allows players to decorate a vacation home for characters. Now you can customize rooms in the hotel for characters to visit. The hotel also brings back beloved characters like Leiani, Leila, and Grams, family members of Kapp’n, who was brought back to Animal Crossing in the 2.0 update.
There will also be new furniture added to the game. Some of these items can be obtained through the new hotel. Other items come from the new collaboration between two of Nintendo’s big titles, Zelda and Splatoon. New furniture items, clothing, and characters will be added to the game. By scanning certain amiibo from either Zelda or Splatoon the player can invite these new characters to their island.
Another big addition to the game will be Slumber Islands. This feature allows the player to customize a whole new island outside of their main island. This is another feature players are looking forward to because the game only allowed one island per console. Now players can create a new island without restarting their games or getting a new Switch. It also lets multiple people customize an island at once, something you could only do within one console.
Other features include bulk crafting, fixed movement when in construction mode, expanded storage, new items, and more.
After playing the new update for the past week I’ve noticed a few things that were not mentioned. Villagers that visit the hotel can roam the island freely. You can also change what they are wearing by changing the outfits on the mannequins in the hotel lobby. All of the villagers that visit are randomized and not all eight standard rooms will be filled every day. Not only are there eight standard rooms that can be redesigned every day, there is one VIP room that you can design. Once you design the room the next day it will be emptied the next day. For those that need help with themes for the rooms, Leiani has a list of themes for both standard and VIP rooms. The VIP themes can only be applied to the singular VIP room and not the standard rooms. The player can also choose who they want in the VIP room. It can either be the one of the hotel guests or by scanning an amiibo. A few smaller changes include: one extra Kapp’n Tour, along with Pascal giving one pearl and one DIY.
I do have an issue with the new feature for construction mode. Holding down the L bumper the whole time to stay in the “fixed position” does get uncomfortable after a while. Overall I like the new update. It gives animal crossing players something new to come back to or even a reason to play the game all over again. It is similar to Happy Home Paradise, in the sense that the player can design rooms, which is nice for those who never got the DLC.
