Now that Animal Crossing fans have had to wait seven years for a proper sequel, anticipation for the rapidly-approaching release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is through the proverbial roof. With only nineteen days to go before one of March 2020’s biggest games finally arrives, fans are eager to learn whatever new details they can get their hands on.
After all this time, fans will have a fairly fresh spin on the series formula to look forward to as they make a virtual life for themselves on a deserted island, with plenty of new features including a character creator and the ability for players to terraform their island. But in addition to all of that, it turns out that New Horizons will also be bringing back at least one feature from the earliest days of Animal Crossing.
This weekend has seen attendees at PAX East go hands-on with the game for the first time. While most of the impressions from the event have focused on key features that were revealed during the recent Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct and elsewhere, it has been confirmed that the game will allow players to play from a top-down perspective.
This was how the camera worked in the first Animal Crossing game, and New Horizons will let players switch between that and the more angled default perspective with ease. At the 6:10 mark in the video below (courtesy of GameXplain), a Nintendo rep can be heard explaining how pressing the right analog stick will move the camera to make the gameplay more reminiscent of the 2002 Nintendo GameCube original.
It might not be the most game-changing feature Animal Crossing: New Horizons has to offer, but it should prove useful for longtime fans who want to take a nostalgic break from the “rolling world” point-of-view that recent AC games have employed. At any rate, it’s nice that Nintendo is giving them the option.
New and returning features (not to mention the long wait for this game) have helped to get people hyped for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It’s also helped generate buzz that the game just so happens to be launching on the same day as Doom Eternal. The sheer tonal contrast between the pleasant social sim and the gory shooter has not gone unnoticed by gamers, who have embraced the disparity with surprisingly wholesome memes starring Isabelle and Doomguy, the two games’ most prominent characters.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out on March 20 for the Switch.
