Highlights
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons has become incredibly popular due to its soothing gameplay and colorful characters, but older games in the series are inaccessible on modern consoles.
- Nintendo has slowly been trying to address this issue by bringing back older franchises, such as Pikmin, for the Switch, and it should do the same with Animal Crossing.
- The Animal Crossing series has evolved and expanded with each new installment, but fans currently have no way to experience the older games unless they own outdated consoles like the GameCube or 3DS.
Ever since the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Animal Crossing series has become one of Nintendo's most popular franchises. The soothing gameplay loop has attracted players of all ages, and the colorful cast of characters has helped boost the experience even more. It is easy to see why this franchise has been as successful as it has, but there has never been a way to experience it in its entirety on one console, and that needs to be rectified.
The Animal Crossing series is just one of many Nintendo franchises that are inaccessible on modern hardware. The studio seldom has any form of backward compatibility, and older Nintendo titles are often too expensive to pick up. This can often be annoying for fans of these franchises, but the studio has slowly been trying to fix that. It recently brought the entire Pikmin franchise to Switch for the release of Pikmin 4, and now it should do the same thing with the Animal Crossing series during the lead-up to the next chapter.
Animal Crossing Could Thrive on the Switch
The Animal Crossing series first began back in 2001 on the Nintendo GameCube, and this title introduced the franchise's core gameplay loop, many of its iconic characters, and helped kick off the casual game genre. Living in a town of anthropomorphic animals was surprisingly a lot of fun, and many players never wanted to leave its colorful world. While the graphics may have been a little dated, everything else about the game worked splendidly.
Nintendo would expand the franchise in 2005 with Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS. This would take players to a new island, expand the customization options, and feature a slew of new mechanics to liven up the formula. The addition of online play further took the experience to new heights, but that feature has since been disabled. Much like its predecessor, the game is also inaccessible on modern hardware and interested players must track down a DS to play it.
Animal Crossing: City Folk further expanded the concept on the Nintendo Wii, but it has also been left to gather dust on its console. Even Animal Crossing: New Leaf is no longer accessible unless players own a 3DS and the game cartridge. Each game expanded the core concept considerably, had its own unique flair, and helped make this franchise a household name. Even with all of that success, Nintendo has done little to honor these classics in any way.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the biggest leap forward for the franchise, and it will likely never look back. Nintendo gave players the tools to design pretty much whatever they wanted, and players everywhere seemed to flock to it. It would end up selling more than the entire series combined and has created a whole new generation of fans in the process. A new generation that would probably like to experience some of the older games, but they do not currently have that option.
Recently, Nintendo released every single Pikmin game for the Switch as the release date for Pikmin 4 neared. Pikmin 3 Deluxe had been on the console since 2020, but the first two games had been locked to the Wii and GameCube. The studio aimed to change that this year with the release of Pikmin 1 and 2 on the Switch, and that was a fantastic choice. It not only helped build up hype for the next game, but also served as a terrific way to honor the unique RTS series. It seems to have paid off for that franchise, and now it is time for Nintendo to do the same thing with Animal Crossing.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now on Switch.
