The latest Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct presented us with some EPIC news…
It’s been a long time coming, but Animal Crossing New Horizons is set to get a HUGE update on 5 November 2021! Not only are we getting a massive free update with version 2.0, we are also getting the first paid DLC.
If you’ve been following me for awhile either on my blog or on my socials, then you will know that I put A LOT of hours into Animal Crossing New Horizons, and then I just suddenly stopped reporting on my island’s progress and then eventually just stopped playing. I feel like I owe you guys an explanation… I did lose a lot of free time for gaming when I became a mum last year, but that’s not the main reason I stopped playing… the big reason I stopped playing is because the game simply just got boring. Once I finished the story, there was only so much work and customisation that I could do, and with little to no updates through the year except for the holiday events, there wasn’t a lot of motivation to keep playing… so I didn’t… but with so much new content coming, it almost feels like we are getting a whole new game and I am excited about Animal Crossing New Horizons all over again! From brand new customisation feature to new adventures, this update is set to give us everything we wished we had when the game first launched back in 2020 and more. So what exactly are we getting with all this new content? Let’s take a look…
Version 2.0 – Free Update
This free update give us version 2.0 of Animal Crossing New Horizons and it’s a BIG update. It’s also the last free update that the game will be getting, with the introduction of a paid DLC – but I’ll get to that later. Here’s what we can expect from version 2.0 in November:
Brewster Opens His Café
By now you would have noticed the little coffee kiosk in the upstairs corner of the Museum – unless you’re like me and haven’t played ACNH in a while and have only heard about it from other players. Well, with this update, Brewster will be opening his café on the upstairs level of the museum where that kiosk is. This is going to be such a funky little place to go and relax with a cup of Brewster’s finest coffee. Not only can you enjoy a coffee on your own, your island residents will also visit the café and you will be able to hang and chat with them. You will also be able to use amiibos to invite residents, and some of them might even bring some friends with them for you all to enjoy some time together. What even more exciting, you can also invite your friends to visit and have a coffee and chat with them.
One of my favourite things to do in real life is hang with my friends and chat over a coffee, so I think Brewster’s Café is going to be my new favourite place on the island.
Boat Tours with Kapp’n
Hanging out on your pier you’ll find Kapp’n sitting in his little boat waiting to take you on adventures across the sea to secret, mysterious islands that only he knows about. These islands will have different and new flora, and they even might be a different season or time of day/night to your island. Personally, I think this is super cool because it means I don’t have to rely on lining up timezones with friends abroad in order to visit different seasons and times of day/night.
Marketplace Opens on Harv’s Island
This one is SUPER exciting! We will no longer have to wait for specific times and days for certain people to visit our islands to get do specific shopping from their stalls. This update is expanding Harv’s Island and opening up a marketplace for all of our favourite little tradespeople (or tradesanimals). So now whenever you want a new pair of shoes, you can just pop on over to Harv’s Island and pay Kicks a visit.
Another super cool thing about this little marketplace is that you can visit Cyrus and get customisations on items that you aren’t able to customise yourself. So things like lighthouses, pianos, and benches can be customised for an even more personalised island. Other cool additions include getting your daily fortune from Katrina and Harriet will teach you some new hairstyles.
Of course the marketplace doesn’t just appear… you will have to work and help create the marketplace. I mean, would it even be Animal Crossing if you didn’t have to do everything yourself and spend your own bells to create an awesome place for everyone to use. I am super excited for this though, it’s going to be a really great addition.
More Island Support from Nook Inc.
There’s a pretty cool little mini-game coming where you can take part in stretching activities with all of your residents in the plaza. This can be done with either the controls or motion controls with the joycons so that you can actually do the stretching exercises yourself. You can even do this with friends on your island or on theirs. When I think about the countless hours that I have spent sitting around playing ACNH, I think that this is an amazing addition to help get you up and moving about for a moment.
There will also be the capability to place ordinances on the island so that you can ensure that you are getting the best experience for your play style and your island lifestyle. Ordinances include Beautiful Island Ordinance, Early Bird Ordinance, Night Owl Ordinance, and Bell Boom Ordinance. This is something that I am excited about because it will really enhance my game play experience. I tend to play a lot at night when my baby girl is asleep, so I often miss out on a lot of the island action, which is one of the reasons I started losing interest in the game – there was just nothing for me to do at night! So I think I will be making a lot of use out of the Night Owl Ordinance so that there is more action on my island while I’m playing.
Tom Nook’s home construction and customisation services are expanding too. There will be more exterior design options so that you can really make your home feel like a home and fit your island’s theme.
Storage is also expanding to a huge 5000 capacity! Not only will you be able to access your storage from your house, but you can have a little shed that you can put anywhere around the island to access your storage with ease. There will also be more items that you can redeem with your Nook miles, so having extra storage is going to be super handy! Speaking of easy access, there will also be an ABD machine on the island so you don’t have to keep going into the resident services building every single time you need to use it.
Your Nook Phone will be getting a new app called Island Life 101. This app will give you tips on how to enjoy island life.
Farming and Cooking
Yep, you read that right! There is farming and cooking coming to ACNH and I for one am absolutely ecstatic about it! My kitchen in my house was something I was working really hard on and was really proud of, but I hated that I couldn’t actually use it. Now not only will I be able to use my kitchen to cook amazing meals, but I can grow and farm my own ingredients! The addition of cooking recipes to the DIY recipes is such a fun addition and I can’t wait!
More Customisations
You will be able to obtain a Pro Decorating License that will allow you do do more customisations that ever before. With this, you will be able to add hanging fixtures to the ceiling such as lights and hanging shelves, and you will be able to add accent walls to give a single wall a different pattern. These might be small customisations, but they can be huge to the overall aesthetic of a room and I am so keen for this!
There will also be an increase to 10 bridges and inclines each that you can have on your island with the Pro Construction License. Speaking of inclines, there will also be the ability to permanently fix ladders to parts of your island for those cliffs where you want quick access but there’s no space for an incline. This will be made available through the creation of a new buildable tool called the step up ladder kit. The DIY recipe will be available from Nook’s Cranny and you can place as many as you want anywhere you want on your island. I will 100% be making use of this!
You will also be able to have more customisations to fences, including not just the ability to change the colours, but there will be 9 additional fence recipes available including park fences, block fences, frozen fences, corrugated iron fences, large lattice fences, log wall fences, green bamboo fences, bamboo screen fences, and log fences. This will add a huge amount of diversification to your island by allowing for more personalisation to customisations.
Patterns that were used for customising items will be able to be used to customise your outfits and even your floors and walls. There will be 11 more hairstyles added, including the ones that you will learn from Harriet, adding even more personalisation to your villager. There will also be 11 more reactions added so you will be able to show more personality and communicate more.
Smile for the Camera
The camera on your Nook Phone is getting an upgrade! You’ll be able to change the view to a handheld camera mode so that you will be able to capture images from your eye level. You can also set it up in tripod mode so that you can include yourself in photos. This is going to open up a whole new world of amazing photos to be captures from different angles. I love taking photos of places around my island and in my home so I am super excited for this. I can’t wait to take a bunch of beautiful photos with this feature!
More Music
KK Slider is releasing some new tunes! There will be 12 more KK hits added to the playlist. I’m lowkey keen for the new KK Polka that’s coming, it sounds really fun. There is also a beautiful little music box that you can use to listen to all of KK’s tunes, which I am actually pretty excited for because it’s super cute.
Gyroids
Sick of digging up fossils that you already have? Well, with the addition of gyroids, there is a whole new collection to find! You will be able to bury gyroid fragments and water them so that they grow overnight. They will grow into little gyroids, and if a gyroid has grown on your island then you might be able to find them buried around your island after it rains. The gyroids make different sounds and there is a near-endless amount of combinations to make and collect. You can sit and listen to all their cute little sounds, or use them with music so that they all make a tune together with the music. Whatever you do with them, they are super cute and are going to look adorable decorating your house. Especially since you can customise them so that they match a room’s aesthetic.
More Furniture
I mentioned that there would be more items available by redeeming your Nook Miles, but there will be even more new furniture and items to get as Nook’s Cranny will be getting a bunch of new stock!
Navigate Through Tight Spaces
Tight spaces have always been a HUGE issue for me. I would design my room a certain way, but then wouldn’t be able to move around and it would be super annoying. So I would always have to move items and furniture so that I could move around, but then the gaps between items and furniture would be took big and it would look dumb and just ruin the whole aesthetic of the room. Now, FINALLY, we will be able to navigate tight spaces by being able to scooch around them. I’m really happy about this because not only does it mean that I can design my rooms in a realistic way, it’s also just a super logical thing to happen and I honestly don’t know why it wasn’t a thing from the beginning.
Nurturing Resident Relationships
While this is a necessary part of the game, I’m not overly keen on this. It’s going to force me to interact when I don’t always want to. Sometimes when I play I want to just go about my business and maintain my island’s appearance. I’m not sure how it will work, but residents will be able to invite you to visit their house, which I do think is a cute and fun little addition, but I don’t know if there is the option to turn down an invitation or if the resident will get offended and it will tarnish the relationship if you do turn it down. Also, residents can just randomly show up at your house, which I’m not thrilled about. I have always hated that about simulation games when characters just walk into your house and make themselves at home. I wouldn’t put up with that happening in real life, so I shouldn’t have to deal with it when I’m playing a game.
All of that is coming with the free update in version 2.0 on 5 November, 2021. It’s such a massive update, and with so much content coming it makes sense as to why there hasn’t been that many decent updates through the year. It honestly feels like we are getting a whole new game and I am really excited about it. I haven’t been this excited about Animal Crossing New Horizons since the original announcement and launch of the game. I am really excited to get back into playing and creating my own little paradise.
If you missed the stream, you can watch the video on the version 2.0 free update below:
Happy Home Paradise DLC
Yeah, there is even more content coming to ACNH with the first paid DLC, Happy Home Paradise. I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am about this!
With this DLC, when you visit Dodo Airlines, you will be able to go to work. Tom Nook will give you a reference and you will be able to go to a group of islands where characters go to get their dream vacation homes. You’ll be hired to help the resort developer, Paradise Planning, to create dream lifestyles for characters.
There are a bunch of characters that visit looking for their dream vacation house, and while there is a brief to meet for each character, this gives a lot of opportunity to get super creative. Each house is suited to a different island, so you will need to select the right island for the job, then you can get designing and decorating and make these little character’s dreams come true.
There are some super cool design features available with this DLC, including partition walls and pillars so that you can divide spaces, and ambient lighting and even soundscapes to add some depth to the space. You can also decorate the yards to really personalise the dream vacation houses for each character. You will also be able to make recommendations for remodels of houses and for roommates.
Designs aren’t just limited to the dream vacation houses of these characters; there are also several vacant houses and businesses around the main island of this collection of islands. This main island is kind of the hub for these islands, so there will be island facilities that you will be able to design and customise, including a school, restaurant and café.
One of the most exciting things about this DLC is that any of the techniques you learn designing with Happy Home Paradise you can bring back to the mainland where your home is. So with this DLC you will be able to have even more design customisations for your home at your fingertips. Then once you get a heap of experience and become a veteran designer, you will even be able to make recommendations for remodels and designs to the homes of your island residents, adding even more customisation to your island!
This DLC also releases on November 5, available for purchase as a standalone DLC for Animal Crossing New Horizons, or as part of the new Nintendo Online + Expansion Membership. If you missed the stream, you can watch the announcement of Happy Home Paradise below.
I am super excited about all this new content. Honestly, the game was getting a little stale and I had lost interest. I haven’t played in about 6 months, so my island is going to be in probably worse condition than when I first started playing! But all this new content makes it feels like we are getting a whole new game. I’m so keen for all this fresh content that it makes me feel like I want to start fresh with a whole new island. There is so much more customisation coming and it’s starting to look like the game that I always hoped and wanted it to be. I am so excited!!!
What are you most looking forward to with this update and will you be getting the DLC? Let me know in the comments.
Starting a new island also means a bunch of new content for my socials, so make sure you’re following me for progress on my island.
Until next time…
– MuffinBear 🐻
my neuro diaries 
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