It's possible that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has made a name for itself among the most impactful, such as Breath of the Wild and Skyrim. Or, at least, some players may have expected this to be the case, but with Nintendo virtually ending support for Animal Crossing: New Horizons aside from some small bug fixes. The Happy Home Paradise DLC and the 2.0 update were the final major updates, both paid and free, that players should expect.
What this means is that it's now up to the Animal Crossing player community to keep the momentum going, and only time will tell if it's as timeless as Skyrim and Breath of the Wild. New Horizons is certainly the most popular game of the series and cause Nintendo Switches to sell out in many countries. But an important method to keeping dated games like Fallout: New Vegas and Witcher 3 going is their modding communities. Because of its current content, Animal Crossing: New Horizons would be the perfect blueprint for modders to keep the game timeless, but it's held back by one problem.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Is Perfect For Modding
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has become a prolific sandbox and crafting game, building on what New Leaf and Pocket Camp did before it. Finally, players could decorate outdoors as well, but not only that, but they can actively terraform land and bodies of water to their hearts' content. Over the course of the pandemic and lockdown procedures, players from all over the world have come up with gorgeous and impressive islands, ranging from cozy cottagecore camps to horror settings inspired by Silent Hill.
But despite its success, there's a lot that could be changed or improved in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Possibly the most widespread example is how stairways and bridges don't line up with building entrances, which has crushed players when trying to make attractive entryways for their museums or Nook's shop. Furthermore, terraforming in New Horizons is simply limiting in many ways, such as how many stairways and bridges can be built. Many would also enjoy moving the permanent structures such as the pier, airport, and plaza. And then there is, of course, the endless possibilities that mods could bring, like new clothes and items, and maybe even expanding the sizes of islands.
Why Animal Crossing: New Horizons May Never Be Heavily Modded
Animal Crossing: New Horizons already has a group of avid modders, and it's resulted in many "hacked" islands. Rather than using the term "modded" more regularly, players call them "hacked" islands because of the process it takes to install mods, but it also has a bit of a negative stigma around it. Even time-traveling isn't wholly accepted by the playerbase despite how popular it's become with New Horizons. Essentially, it breaks the general premise of Animal Crossing, where players are meant to spend days, weeks, and months slowing gathering items and resources to beautify their islands.
But with New Horizons especially, many have moved past that and simply wish to create their dream islands, which is why time-traveling and treasure islands have become popular, aided by the accessibility of the internet. Unfortunately, even though modding Animal Crossing is possible, it's not as prolific nor as simple as modding games on PC, and certainly doesn't get the support that games like Skyrim and Mass Effect have received from their developers. Even just with console mods versus PC mods, they are quite a bit less popular because of accessibility.
Some methods require emulating the Switch on a powerful PC while the simpler methods require installing custom firmware directly to the device. But Nintendo has a reputation when it comes to modding, pirating, or otherwise using its properties in ways it did not intend, which has resulted in permanent bans of Switch users. This means many users will be less inclined to mod their Switches and therefore fewer modders toying with Nintendo's games as well, despite the potential New Horizons could have with mods.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now for the Nintendo Switch.
