At long last, fans can finally live out their tropical island fantasies with the life sim title, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The core gameplay loop of establishing and maintaining a thriving community filled with animals and the ever present loan shark Tom Nook is largely intact from previous entries in the beloved Nintendo series.
This time around however, players are sent to an island getaway where they're free to establish a society through crafting various items and even changing the landscape if they so choose. While there are still plenty of fish to catch, bugs to collect, and fruit to harvest, Animal Crossing: New Horizons places an additional emphasis on collecting resources in order to craft all sorts of DIY recipes. These range from cosmetic gear, items to decorate a house with, to vastly more important things like axes, fishing rods, and more.
Ironically, players are quickly discovering one of the more controversial elements of another Nintendo game has seemingly made its way into Animal Crossing: New Horizon. Created tools have durability and will break fairly easily after a certain number of uses.
The concept has already caught on as a meme, being compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where the weapon durability system in that game seemed to be either a hit or miss with fans. While some enjoyed the believably of it, others lamented the fact that cool weapons and gear were not permanent and would break after certain amount of usage. Only the Master Sword would be a permanent weapon, though Nintendo added a cool down effect to it so players would not be able to use it non-stop once it was claimed.
While fans were excited about the added freedoms that New Horizons was set to bring to the Animal Crossing franchise, this durability issue is no doubt frustrating. Many have begun posting that they've already spent a ton of resources replacing broken tools while others are asking for some sort of indicator to show when a tool is close to breaking. Shockingly, the famed Golden Tool set also appears to be impacted by durability and will break after a certain amount of uses as well.
While most appear to be upset by this fact, there are those who try to paint a different picture of the situation. One user on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons sub-Reddit reveals that they're not only okay with this decision, but they're encouraged by it. Tools breaking provides a gentle push to do something else, adding a bit of variety to prevent the user from getting burnt out on doing the same thing over and over such as fishing or using a net to capture bugs. It forces the player to stop and to do something else for a little while, such as collecting the resources to make the tool again.
Still, the debate will likely continue to rage on with some claiming the system isn't that bad especially after playing for a little while and finding plenty of resources, while others continue to push back against the idea of the game needing tool durability at all.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now on Nintendo Switch.
