Another Animal Crossing crossover is on the horizons. Build-A-Bear Workshop has announced plans to collaborate with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, meaning that fans will likely get to take home and decorate their favorite villagers.
Actually, Build-A-Bear teased a collaboration with Animal Crossing: New Horizons last May. After Nintendo's game surged in popularity around the globe, partially thanks to stay-at-home orders, many brands were looking to get in on the hype either by making in-game islands or selling branded merchandise. One Twitter user said that a Build-A-Bear and Animal Crossing collab would be "a cultural reset," and the stuffed plush company responded with a vague tweet hinting at possible intentions.
At the time, fans didn't think the comment guaranteed anything was coming, but earlier today, Build-A-Bear announced its plans to create an Animal Crossing: New Horizons collection for fans to customize. However, the website simply states that it's "Coming Soon!" with no other information currently available, but fans can sign up for updates to keep tabs on the collaboration.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are already speculating which villagers will come to the crossover. Because Build-A-Bear allows consumers to customize the plushes, it's more likely that villagers will be available over the NPCs like Isabelle, Celeste, Blathers, and Tom Nook, though it's not impossible.
Most likely, Build-A-Bear will feature some of the most popular Animal Crossing villagers that go for millions of bells in trades. Dom, the rainbow sheep villager, was wildly coveted around the launch of New Horizons, but Marshal and Raymond were often at the center of the internet's attention. Other adorable villagers like Stitches, Coco, and Lily would make excellent plushes to personalize.
However, fans are worried that scalpers might ruin the Build-A-Bear and New Horizons crossover like they did with the Animal Crossing: New Horizons x ColourPop crossover and the McDonald's Pokemon cards. When it comes to these nostalgic brands, scalpers clean house as much as possible, then sell the limited edition items for hundreds of dollars more, which was the case with previous Animal Crossing amiibo cards.
Because of the popularity of New Horizons across all ages, it's likely that scalpers will attempt to get their hands on as many stuffed villagers as possible, then sell them to other clamoring adults or parents who want to give their kids something nice. But hopefully, being that Build-A-Bear sells customized stuff plushes, regular consumers will have a better shot this time around.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now for the Nintendo Switch.
