With the rumors of Switch 2… Do you think a new AC could be in development?

[Beanz]

i hope so but i'd imagine that nintendo would probably wait a bit (few of months to a year) to tease the new AC after the rumored switch successor releases and NOT at launch. with the success of new horizons, nintendo has probably been cookin' something up since 2021 and they'd be fools to release a new animal crossing later on in a new console's life span because it's going to be a huge selling point for a lot of people based on how everyone was going nuts for new horizons during coronavirus lock down.

many people who found out about AC during lockdown and joined the NH hype --> that same group buying the new game, and it's obviously at a huge advantage point now when it comes to prioritization.

porting NH or any past games for that matter would be a massive let down and a dumb decision.

 

[LambdaDelta]

I'm positive we'll see something, though it'll probably be a mid-to-late cycle release, unless the switch successor ends up flopping, like the wii u did (imo, if it didn't, there was a very real chance we could've actually seen a proper wii u animal crossing later down the line)

 

[boring]

*looks at the 7 years they made us wait for to get ACNH* uhh..... no. </3

Development? Maybe. But it wont be our business for a good while.

 

[kayleee]

I think they will finally release Metroid prime 4 with the new switch

 

[CylieDanny]

It's possible that there is another in development, with this rumor about a new switch. However I think it will be a while until there's any sort of new game coming out.

The most I can see is re-relesing old games onto it, or advertising about an updated new Horizons strictly for the second switch.

 

[Fruitcup]

Yes, I have no doubt given the popularity of new horizons, I can't wait!

 

[Nougat]

I don't have a guess, but I'm really hoping it's been in development for a while and there'll be an announcement this year!

 

[oath2order]

To be frank, I can't really see another Animal Crossing game on a new console anytime soon.

Due to the success of New Horizons, Nintendo believes that they have finally made the perfect Animal Crossing game.

But, if they DO make a new game for the series, it's probably going to be a spinoff that's basically a better, upgraded version of Amiibo Festival, and bring it to the new Switch, in order to to make up for the fans who hated the game, and apologize, especially since the Wii U was not a hit with Nintendo fans.

In the new and improved spinoff, you would have the option to continue playing for free without the use of amiibos, since we were forced with amiibos in Amiibo Festival.

I agree, and besides, they're still working on Splatoon content.

I imagine they would probably do another DLC for New Horizons and IDEALLY SOME QOL STUFF.

 

[Olimar]

I absolutely think the next game is in development, and assume it has been for years. I think we saw a larger "gap" between NL and NH (and I put gap in quotes bc I consider WA update for NL a pretty big update/major release, coming out 4 years after NL and 4 years before- I think they would stick close to a 4-year gap between NH and the next one) because they had to rebuild the entire game from the 3DS models to the HD ones we got on Switch. Now that they already have all those models, etc. I think they won't have as much to build from the ground up.

I fully believe that they saw what parts of the game were criticized the most and will spend a majority of this development time working on those things - more dialogue, new and returning furniture, and upgrades for different shops. They've gotta know what the fans want, and would be dumb to ignore that. They took a chance on their focus with NH (the designing part of the game), and while I 100% consider NH a complete and great game, I think they will listen to feedback and are working to reinvigorate the charm that a lot of people lost between NL and NH.

 

[McRibbie]

I fully believe that they saw what parts of the game were criticized the most and will spend a majority of this development time working on those things - more dialogue, new and returning furniture, and upgrades for different shops. They've gotta know what the fans want, and would be dumb to ignore that. They took a chance on their focus with NH (the designing part of the game), and while I 100% consider NH a complete and great game, I think they will listen to feedback and are working to reinvigorate the charm that a lot of people lost between NL and NH.

If I'm being honest, I think the focus the AC devs took with NH is also due to "knowing what fans want".

Look at a lot of the common complaints about NL (dialogue aside, obviously): "Isabelle isn't letting me place this PWP in this place, why can't I place furniture outside?", "my villagers keep moving out if I don't play, but they're my dreamies and I'm the mayor! Why can't I lock them in?" "why can't I control where villagers move in? I'm the mayor!" "Why is Isabelle not in the office during an event?! I can't do Important Mayoral Business!"

On top of that, you've got the fact that elaborate themed dream towns became incredibly popular online, you've got the fact that resetting for layouts was popular enough that even Aya Kyogoku herself mentioned it in an interview as being the thing that inspired terraforming, you've got the fact that HHD and Pocket Camp were at the very least reasonably popular... it's unsurprising that NH turned out that way when fandom overwhelmingly seemed to be prodding it down that path, even if it ended up being kind of unknowingly.

What makes the fact that people have completely ignored this in favour of going "whyyyyy" worse is that the people who say things like "NH isn't enough of a life sim" are also the people in the ACNH Rant Thread saying things like "why do I have to go to Blathers to assess fossils?", "why do I have to go to the airport to go online?" or "why is the drop-off box giving me less money than actually interacting with the Nooklings when the shop's open?", stuff which gives off the Exact Opposite Impression imo, and it worries me!

The fact that a good portion of Animal Crossing fandom is blindly chanting "QOL, QOL" without actually considering it's going to tip it further into Design World is worrying on its own, the fact that a good portion of the Animal Crossing fandom is that media illiterate that it somehow both wants AC to be super convenient and bending to your every whim and more life sim (life, of course, being a thing that is Always Easy And Convenient) fills me with a great dread... because when that inevitably doesn't happen, yay! Horrible. I don't look forward to it at all!

on a slightly more optimistic and slightly more "haven't posted this before" note: I generally think there's going to be more furniture (I'm not expecting double the amount NH has, but at the very least a bit more), I think having more shop upgrades ultimately depends on if they decide The Cabinet worked or not, and dialogue... not gonna lie, don't think that's getting any better for various reasons (two more personalities than before, Animal Crossing Is Rated E For Everyone, The Expectation Of A Near-Worldwide Launch, and of course You Are The Mayor, And You Are Encouraged To Literally Do Whatever)

 

[micat]

Look at a lot of the common complaints about NL (dialogue aside, obviously): "Isabelle isn't letting me place this PWP in this place, why can't I place furniture outside?", "my villagers keep moving out if I don't play, but they're my dreamies and I'm the mayor! Why can't I lock them in?" "why can't I control where villagers move in? I'm the mayor!" "Why is Isabelle not in the office during an event?! I can't do Important Mayoral Business!"

On top of that, you've got the fact that elaborate themed dream towns became incredibly popular online, you've got the fact that resetting for layouts was popular enough that even Aya Kyogoku herself mentioned it in an interview as being the thing that inspired terraforming, you've got the fact that HHD and Pocket Camp were at the very least reasonably popular... it's unsurprising that NH turned out that way when fandom overwhelmingly seemed to be prodding it down that path, even if it ended up being kind of unknowingly.

I feel like the bigger issue is that NH cut down on a lot of stuff the NL had at launch though. People were complaining about those things thinking they would still keep old special NPCs, shops, and even mini-games. I think if they kept that from NL as well as the new features that NH had, a lot more people would’ve been satisfied with the game, and there might not have been a divide of opinions on NH.

 

[faerie]

If it's more on the side of a traditional game I'd say it probably in early development. I dread the idea of it going online only with so many things pushing digital media. If it is online only I'd say it would have to be further along in development. Regardless I think maybe a year after the new console launches we might hear something...hopefully.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

A more expanded version of New Horizons will come out on Switch 2 is my guess

 

[VanitasFan26]

Judging by how the mainline AC games have been released in the past:

1. Animal Crossing on GameCube
2. Animal Crossing Wild World on DS
3. Animal Crossing City Folk on Wii
4. Animal Crossing New Leaf on 3DS
5. Animal Crossing New Horizions on Nintendo Switch

I believe it will make a lot more sense for a brand new AC mainline game to be on Switch 2 whenever that will come out. The last time we had a "Side" AC game was with Pocket Camp but that was only on Mobile games. If you're only just focusing on Nintendo consoles than the last "Side" game would be Amiibo Festival on Wii U.

 

[kakapo]

^^how could they expand it?
I know this would never happen but I’d love the original Animal Forest game re-release on new technology

 

[VanitasFan26]

^^how could they expand it?
I know this would never happen but I’d love the original Animal Forest game re-release on new technology

I know most people would want to see that but I doubt it will ever happen.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

^^how could they expand it?
I know this would never happen but I’d love the original Animal Forest game re-release on new technology

I imagine there's lots of ways they could make a more expanded version of NH! Bringing back all the missing furniture sets and other missing furniture items that were in NL, add another upgrade or two to Nook's Cranny, add more dialogue, maybe even make the island bigger, add more multiplayer stuff like Tortimer's Island and the mini-games that were in NL (or at least something like that), expand the Roost so that KK Slider could have his concerts in there maybe.

Nintendo knows that AC players want way more things in NH and I feel like they could go the lazier route by working on a more expanded version of NH for a year or two rather than work multiple years on a whole new AC game.

(Not saying that I would prefer NH 2.0; just saying I think it's possible)

 

[McRibbie]

I feel like the bigger issue is that NH cut down on a lot of stuff the NL had at launch though. People were complaining about those things thinking they would still keep old special NPCs, shops, and even mini-games. I think if they kept that from NL as well as the new features that NH had, a lot more people would’ve been satisfied with the game, and there might not have been a divide of opinions on NH.

You underestimate this place, tbh. Even if there's always something from another game I wish was in literally every Animal Crossing game and there's stuff I miss in NH, I also feel as if the game was just "NL, but with more decorating power" people still would have complained ("it's basically just NL again! Didn't they learn anything from LGTTC?"), even ignoring the fact that making NH took about 5 years of actual development even with updates (the game would have released last year, and that's way too late for something like AC)

(fwiw, do I want to see old special NPCs back? Yeah, if they're utilised well and they're not just kind of there. Do I want more shops? Not in the village itself, but in some kind of city (and I don't want it to be the place where all the NPCs are permanently! I want there to be at least an implication that there's a lot of distant lands where NPCs travel from!). Mini-games? Yup, as long as if it's more like the GBA minigames from e+ rather than the "this is essentially just something you can do with a timer in your own village" minigames that 75% of Tortimer Island's comprised of)

 

[VanitasFan26]

You underestimate this place, tbh. Even if there's always something from another game I wish was in literally every Animal Crossing game and there's stuff I miss in NH, I also feel as if the game was just "NL, but with more decorating power" people still would have complained ("it's basically just NL again! Didn't they learn anything from LGTTC?"), even ignoring the fact that making NH took about 5 years of actual development even with updates (the game would have released last year, and that's way too late for something like AC)

(fwiw, do I want to see old special NPCs back? Yeah, if they're utilised well and they're not just kind of there. Do I want more shops? Not in the village itself, but in some kind of city (and I don't want it to be the place where all the NPCs are permanently! I want there to be at least an implication that there's a lot of distant lands where NPCs travel from!). Mini-games? Yup, as long as if it's more like the GBA minigames from e+ rather than the "this is essentially just something you can do with a timer in your own village" minigames that 75% of Tortimer Island's comprised of)

Lets not forget when City Folk first came out on the Wii it was bashed on for being too similar to the original Animal Crossing and Wild World..

 

[Hunter_Gr33n]

Considering how most previous titles came out a while after their console was released, I think a new AC game could be in development, but it won't released for until a while after the console was released.

Spoiler: Release dates of the mainline games compared to the release dates of their consoles.

• DnM was released in April 2001, while the N64 was released in Japan in June 1996.
• DnM+ (or ACPG for those outside of Japan) was released in December 2001 in Japan, September 2002 in North America, October 2003 in Australia, and September 2004 in Europe. The GameCube was released in 2001 in Japan and North America, and 2002 in Australia and Europe.
• DnM e+ was released in Japan in June 2003. Again, the gGameCube was released in Japan in 2001.
• ACWW was released in Japan in November 2005, North America and Australia in December 2005, Europe in March 2006, and South Korea in December 2007 (though an AC title on the DS was announced as far back as 2004). In most of these locations (not too sure with South Korea), the Nintendo DS was released between late 2004 (North America, Japan) and early 2005 (Australia, Europe).
• Dongwu Senlin, the Chinese localization of DnM, was released in June 2006. Its console, the iQue Player, was released in November 2003.
• ACCF/ACLGttC was released in North America, Japan, Australia, and Europe in November and in December 2008 (though iirc, the game was in development around the same time as the Wii), and South Korea in January 2010. The Wii was released in most of these locations (again, not too sure with South Korea) in early December 2006, except for North America, where it was released about a month prior.
• ACNL was released in Japan in November 2012, South Korea in February 2013, and June 2013 elsewhere. The Nintendo 3DS was released in most of these locations in March 2011, except Japan, where it was released a month earlier. Yet again, I'm not sure when it was released in South Korea, but I can assume it was sometime around here.
  • The WA update was released throughout late November and early December 2016 in Japan, Australia, Europe, South Korea, and North America, in that order. This was several years after the base games were released in 2012-13.
• Lastly, ACNH was released globally in March 2020, while the Switch was released almost 3 years earlier to the day. HHP was similarly released worldwide in November the following year.

All in all, I can assume that if the hypothetical Switch 2 was released later this year, AND that they were working on a new AG game contemporaneously (the latter I'm assuming is very likely, the former not so much), it would probably be released around 2025 at the earliest.

In short: Yes, but it'll probably take a while.