Nintendo's peaceful life-sim franchise has been fairly quiet since the final content update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons released in November 2021. While the resounding success of this entry on the Switch likely points to a new title in the works for Nintendo's next console, it's unclear how the next entry in the franchise will build upon the foundation built by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. One thing this next title can do to one-up its predecessor is to reintroduce the fan-favorite feature of Nintendo crossover characters as villagers.
Cute, unique villagers are one of the most popular parts of the Animal Crossing franchise, and the series has seen many changes to these animal neighbors over the years. While Animal Crossing: New Horizons received a fair amount of criticism for the lack of distinct villager personalities compared to some of the older entries, the game did a further disservice to one of the most unique additions to the 3DS' Animal Crossing: New Leaf. If a future Animal Crossing title were to overhaul its villagers, it needs to include more unique crossover characters based on other Nintendo franchises.
Nintendo Should Go All Out with Crossover Characters in the Next Animal Crossing Game
The Animal Crossing series has had a strange history with crossover characters that began with the Japanese version of the GameCube entry, where three non-Nintendo characters could be added via e-Reader cards. Of these characters, two were based on animal translation toys available in Japan, and one was a collaboration with a Japanese gaming magazine. The first time players saw crossover characters outside of Japan was in the spin-off title Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer where a character based on the Felynes from the Monster Hunter series could be unlocked via an amiibo, and another was part of a collaboration with 7-Eleven stores.
Although some of these crossovers seem random, the Welcome Amiibo update for Animal Crossing: New Leaf in 2016 took crossovers to the next logical level. It introduced villagers based on Splatoon and The Legend of Zelda characters that could be accessed by scanning certain amiibos from their respective series. It made so much more sense seeing villagers based on Epona, Wolf Link, Callie and Marie, and others from Nintendo franchises rather than crossovers with random stores. There was also a line of villagers based on Sanrio characters, which isn't surprising given how popular Sanrio's properties are in Japan.
Unfortunately, these characters were largely absent from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, aside from the Sanrio villagers. Nintendo's massive roster of characters could make for great villagers, so it seems like a huge wasted opportunity not to iterate on the crossover characters from the 3DS entry. Despite having a Mario crossover that included furniture based on the franchise, the game missed the chance to add villagers based on the plumbers, or even Princess Peach and Bowser. The next Animal Crossing title could go even bigger and include villagers based on the Pokemon series, which would likely draw in a massive audience.
While Nintendo may have limited the number of crossover characters available on the Switch entry due to a decline in amiibo support, there are other ways future Animal Crossing games could go about this same mechanic. Depending on the hardware capabilities of Nintendo's successor to the Switch, amiibo support may be discontinued altogether, leaving these villagers trapped on older titles. Nintendo could remedy this by including crossover characters as optional DLC or even as free bonuses for having save data for certain games on the same console; there are enough possibilities that there's no reason not to include this feature in a future game.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for Nintendo Switch.
