During the Nintendo event of E3 2019, the company has announced another new game, this time in one of their major franchises. The newest Switch title is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This entry in the iconic Animal Crossing franchise continue the trend set up by the franchise dating all the way back to 2001. The Animal Crossing games are an incredibly popular mix of social interaction, farming, trading and daily life simulation. The gameplay loop is incredibly engrossing, meaning that any new game is going to get a huge amount of hype.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a big game, and it’s going to take a ton of work to ship the project. This would normally mean a ton of “crunch” that overworks and stresses out Nintendo’s teams working on the game. With the improved graphics, expanded mechanics and increased amount of polish that the game will get, Nintendo made a choice, one which is both good and bad.
The company has decided to delay the project so that crunch would not be a factor in development, which should lead to a better quality final product, but also has some negative repercussions. For one thing, a pretty substantial drop in stock value followed this delay. This drop wiped out substantial stock value for the Japanese company, accounting for a single day loss of 3.5% overall. This accounted for roughly $1 billion in value lost by the company.
Fortunately, the big N should be able to recoup this loss when 2020 rolls around and the game launches. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is bringing plenty of improved features and gameplay elements to the franchise. There’s improved character customization, as well as expanded options for facial expressions, hairstyles and clothing. The game will also feature local co-op play.
If you want to see some of the gameplay of this new title, check out a pretty lengthy overview showing plenty of gameplay footage of Animal Crossing: New Horizons down below. And with this delay, the game is now slated for a March 2020 release.
