Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores, but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, all whilst including some lengthy gameplay, to give you, the reader, the chance to form your own impressions and views while reading and watching.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition by developer Nintendo:
Contents
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Explay: (The Explanation)
Just when you think that the sun has set on Animal Crossing: New Horizons after years of no new content updates, Nintendo gives the game another lease of life with a free content update and a new Nintendo Switch 2 Edition to boot! That’s right, Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is now a thing, and is Nintendo’s first offering for Switch 2 for 2026.
Before we begin with our review, I wanted to point out that I will be covering both the free 3.0 update and the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I won’t be doing a deep dive into the base content as I already have a fully comprehensive review of the base game and its Happy Home Paradise DLC already published right here at Miketendo64.com. Feel free to read them to learn about the other features and key aspects of the game. Instead, I will provide a brief overview of Animal Crossing: Crossing New Horizons and will then talk about what is new. Because of this, I will be doing something a little different with this review and will title each particular segment so you can easily find the information you are more interested in reading. This way, you can skip any segments that may not appeal to you. With that out of the way, its time to grab your shovel and dig in!
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Overview
For gamers who have not yet played Animal Crossing: New Horizons and will be jumping into the game for the first time, it is a cozy life simulation game where you are given charge to curate a deserted island in any way you see fit. You can invite animal villagers to come live on your island, grow trees, flowers, and crops, catch fish and bugs, create DIY furniture to decorate your homes, and decorate the island with any items you have obtained to make it really special and unique to you.
You can invite players to visit your island and hang out together or even jump on a plane to visit theirs. The game operates in real-time, and events will occur during the day or season. Shops will open and close at certain times. Fishing Tourneys and Bug Tourneys are held at certain times of the year, as is Museum Day, Toy Day, Halloween, and Festivale. It’s a game you can easily lose yourself in for hours as you just chop down some trees for materials, or collect fruit to sell for Bells (the in-game currency). You can use the bells you earn to buy other furniture items that you can’t craft yourself to give your island home that extra flair, or pay off your mortgage to the notorious Tom Nook as you expand your home, add more rooms to it, and change its external appearance (facade, roof, door, etc).
For our full thoughts, please feel free to check out our original review:
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition has all the standard features of the original Switch game with a few extra (and really welcome) features. The first noticeable difference is the increased resolution. The Switch 2 Edition now sports 4K resolution when the console is docked and 1080p when in handheld mode. When playing normally, it may not look that different, but when you adjust the camera angles to view things closer or use the Handheld Camera option in Pro Camera Mode, you can see that everything indeed looks a lot sharper and cleaner than before.
Mouse Controls are probably the biggest addition to Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. It makes room decoration so much easier as you can swiftly move the on-screen cursor anywhere to move furniture with ease. When it comes to moving outside furniture, you will still have to do that by hand. On the plus side, when you reach the point in the game where you can redecorate other villagers’ homes, vacation homes in the Happy Home Paradise DLC, or redecorate hotel rooms (more on this in the next segment), you will be able to take full advantage of the mouse controls then. It is also worth noting that you can use mouse controls for creating your custom designs and for writing/drawing bulletin board messages.
In the Switch version of the game, up to eight players can play together online. If everyone has a Nintendo Switch 2 and a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, however, the number of players is increased to twelve. You can also use the GameChat feature to talk with your friends directly (without the need for the pesky Nintendo Switch Online app for conversing online or using the likes of Discord or Facebook Messenger). Those who have a compatible USB camera can even have their faces displayed on screen, and you will be able to see their reactions in real-time as they move around your island.
One last feature is the Megaphone that has been added to the game. You can use it in both the Nintendo Switch 1 version and the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, but it will only be effective in the Switch 2 edition. The Megaphone utilizes the Nintendo Switch 2’s built-in microphone so you can call the residents on your island. If there is a particular resident that you are having trouble finding (perhaps to return a lost item or to give them a gift), you can activate the megaphone and call them by name with the microphone, and a message will pop up on the screen indicating their general direction. Now that is really handy.
This pretty much covers the additional features of the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If you are thinking of upgrading to the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, the upgrade pack is only $4.99 or so, meaning it isn’t going to break the bank, and you may well be better off just purchasing the upgrade pack as opposed to buying the full game again if you already own the Switch version. For anyone who has not bought Animal Crossing: New Horizons (firstly, where were you during the 2020 pandemic? Everyone and their mum were playing this game), you should now have a general idea of the differences between the two versions. On the topic of which version you should get, I will leave that decision up to you.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Free 3.0 Update
Okay, so the big question that is probably on your mind is, how does the new 3.0 update differ from anything that we have already in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? The short and honest answer is that it doesn’t, for the most part. More rooms to customize? Yes, more furniture to obtain? Absolutely. More ways to acquire Nook Miles? Sure. That said, I will focus on the good things to come out of this update that you may or may not be aware of. The biggest thing is the addition of a Hotel resort to your island. It has eight rooms that you can decorate, and you can use a predetermined theme, or you can freestyle it.
You can also receive DIY requests that will grant you a special currency that you can redeem for a new variety of items, and if you reach a certain amount of progress with the hotel room redecoration, and DIY requests, you can obtain special items like the NES, Famicom Disk System, the SNES, the Game Boy, and other special Nintendo items that will allow you to play short versions of classic games like Ice Climber, Panel de Pon, Ice Hockey, Klu Klu Land, and F-Zero. The downside to this is that you will need an active Nintendo Switch Online membership to play these games. The irony being that if you have an active NSO membership, you will already have access to these games in their respective Nintendo Classics collections that you can download anyway.
Also, new collaboration items have been added with the likes of LEGO, Zelda, and Splatoon furniture being up for grabs via Nook Shopping. The LEGO items, you can access straight away, but the Zelda and Splatoon goodies, you will need to scan specific amiibo at least once to add the line-up of items to Nook Shopping. This is not really an issue for someone who is a big fan of these series and probably already has Zelda and Splatoon amiibo to scan. For those who don’t, this is probably a big disappointment, with more content being trapped behind an amiibo paywall.
Still, you can use Zelda and Splatoon amiibo to also invite new villagers Tulin and Mineru, to stay on the campsite, as well as recurring villagers Cece and Viché who now closely resemble Shiver and Frye from Splatoon 3. If you invite one of them three time to your island, you will be given the option to invite them to live on your island permanently, just like you could with other amiibo villagers, you can also invite them to stay at the hotel if you prefer or have a coffee with them at the Roost.
After that little detour on amiibo, let’s get back to the collaborative items. There is quite an assortment of stuff with LEGO-themed beds, sofas, fireplaces, and DIY workbenches. The Zelda collab includes clothing items like the Champion’s Tunic, the Master Sword and Hylian Shield, Ancient Princess Dress, and other items like the Triforce, Heart Container, Rupees, and a Decayed Guardian. As for Splatoon, you can obtain themed clothing and furniture, including but not limited to the Inkling and Octoling Wigs, a wearable Ink Tank, Crab Tank, Splattershot, Big Man Couch, Golden Egg, Sea Snail, and a three-part Splatfest Panels. Some, but not all of these items, can also be customized so you can effectively increase the variety of these items to better suit your color scheme preferences.
Other smaller features that have been added include the ability to craft multiples of the same item at once, using materials from storage when crafting DIY. The home storage can now be increased so you can hoard even more stuff, although you will have to pay 700,000 bells for the privilege. Sidestepping is now possible, as well as moving backwards/forwards one step when holding the L button (handy for terraforming the land or laying down pavements/tiles). While it may not exactly sound groundbreaking, these QoL adjustments are so much more convenient when reforming the island or handling DIY requests. It would be a pain at times to readjust myself every time I want to redirect rivers or carve corners into the land without taking out the part of the land next to it.
One final addition to Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is Slumber Islands. These special islands can be accessed by going to sleep on a bed in the game. You can team up with friends and family online to work together to terraform and decorate these islands in any way you see fit, or maybe you just want to build a whole new island all by yourself with the full range of tools and furniture that you didn’t have when you first booted up the game. Although I may not make much use of Slumber Islands (well, perhaps I may do one), it is an ideal solution for those who want to start their islands afresh but don’t want to lose access to everything they had before.
Conclusion:
The time has come to close out this review. I already loved the original game for the Switch, so Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition was already a no-brainer for me. I had no qualms about picking up the upgrade pack, which is a lot more cost-effective than some of the other Nintendo Switch 2 Editions that have been released for Nintendo Switch 2. If you already have the game and own a Switch 2, the $5 price tag to upgrade to better visuals, 12-player online Game Chat, and mouse controls is worth the punt. Buying the whole game again just for the physical box is probably not the best way to go if you already have the Switch version, as you are not going to get any extra value that way. If you are looking to play the game for the first time, then I would definitely recommend going for the Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, as the difference in price is minimal, and you will probably be thankful for having the use of mouse controls from the get-go, as it does make room decoration that much more effortless.
Game Specifications:
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Simulation
No. of Players: 1-4 player (Local), 2-12 player (Online)
Release Date: January 15, 2026 (Worldwide)
Price: $64.99 ($4.99 for Upgrade Pack)
File Size: 10.5 GB (NSW) | 10.7 GB (NS2)
Nintendo.com Listing
