Do you think the developers were on a time crunch?

[Spooky.]

I'm not sure...missing things could have been intentional/meant to be added later or just never added at all.

They did extend the game once already.

As for the glitches...I'm not sure. I feel like it's hard to predict all potential glitches.

 

[Mick]

The fact they responded and patched these fairly quickly shows they aren't too swamped with other tasks to do so.

This. Not only would it take a more than a month for them to fully develop redd, leif, the nature events, the wedding season and an art gallery, you simply wouldn't go for the content-as-free-dlc option if that hadn't already been the plan for a very long time.

As for the bugs, let's just face it, this game is more intricate than New Leaf and you're going to miss things. Even with the best code tests and testing teams, you still have to come up with every single possible point of failure in order to protect yourself from it. And from my basic bullying of the game mechanics, I can tell you that they thought of a lot of things.

For finding the rest of the issues, there is nothing quite like the power of a million users!

Another likely scenario: They were ready for this. They knew that people would find things at launch, and had a team ready to patch said things out, because this is a more modern game than WW and NL, so patching is a very realistic option now.

 

[Xara]

i believe the glitches were accidental and had nothing to do with the game being rushed. while the idea of the game being rushed is entirely possible, given that a lot of time must have been dedicated to creating the museum, introducing terraforming, etc. it’s entirely possible that in this game’s development, certain features got more attention than others, hence why certain npcs and features will need to be rolled out over time. but you could also argue that this was all intentional, minus the glitches, to prevent people from obtaining everything in a matter of weeks

 

[Annika.]

I don't think they were put on a time crunch because it's very obvious that the first version of the game just included the basic. If they cared about wanting to make Animal Crossing veterans happy they would have designed and put in the furniture sets right off the bat, they could choose what to prioritize in the extra months they've gotten. So I think it's a deliberate choice to release the game in the state that it was, bugs happen with such a big production and they were fixed pretty quickly. They worked hard for 7 years and they'll still work hard for years to come.

 

[sdw4527]

This!

They probably did this to allow time travels to keep time travelling and not write them off completely, while at the same time, letting non-time travellers not feel like they are far behind.

It was definitely a planned decision. The Splatoon 2 model where they trickle in content every month was extremely successful. Game continued to be a big success and generated buzz even far after release. Animal Crossing is a unique series where this idea actually shines as everything is done real time anyways so they probably felt it was only natural to continue it here. I don't really see signs of time crunch here. A game pressed for time will seem a lot more unpolished than this with a lot more glitches.

 

[January]

A few things to consider...
game devs are pretty much always going to be rushed, or to some extent have to put out a finished product that they wouldn't mind some extra time to polish. Any dev wishes they had a little more time on every project they've worked on, but, it's the nature of the beast. Especially at a big company, where there are a lot of moving pieces, and a huge team of people working together.
Plus... all the different regional/localizations came out at once I think, right? So the game mechanics had to be "finished" before the content was, in a sense. I know I'm not wording this very well, I'm tired, lol. I guess my point is that a lot of time and effort went in and with such a huge and complex game there are bound to be bugs. As weird as it is for me to be playing an AC game that Nintendo can actively manipulate - I can totally see it being an advantage. They can continue to add content and mechanics to keep the game fresh.

 

[matt2019]

I have the glitch where redd NEVER visits. And I don’t know what caused it. But after spending so much money on Nintendo I’m not very happy with this. I don’t even know what caused the glitch

 

[moonchu]

they made us wait a million years for the game, so i doubt they cared if we had to wait a few more if need be.
nintendo is not like some infallible impervious god entity, ofc there's going to be issues. especially with such a large game, especially trying to accommodate and do right by the very passionate fan base. there are only so many tests that they could've predicted and ran. i know the glitches are very frustrating, but i do think that they're doing a decent job with trying to patch them as quickly as possible. the updates are not only patches for the glitches, but content that they purposefully decided to release at a later date.

i loved new leaf with all my heart, and i do miss it at times - but new horizon has been a great game and they're clearly trying new things without upsetting the essence of animal crossing too much.

 

[Mars Adept]

No not really, I mean didn't they have like 7 years to make a new game?

Something about the game feels off to me. I doubt they worked on it for seven years. Probably started around 2016-ish after HHD and Wa if I were to make an estimated guess. Take this with a grain of salt, though.

I don't believe the duping glitch was ever even patched in NL.

It was patched in the Welcome amiibo update I think, along with several other glitches like the net glitch.

 

[FireNinja1]

Something about the game feels off to me. I doubt they worked on it for seven years. Probably started around 2016-ish after HHD and Wa if I were to make an estimated guess. Take this with a grain of salt, though.

I don't think it really matters how long it took them. Regardless of how many years you take to develop a project of this size, it's basically impossible to ensure that it's entirely bug-free. Nintendo hasn't been perfect with bug-fixing, but I don't get the impression that this game was sloppily put together.

 

[DJStarstryker]

I'm personally convinced that they spent nearly all of their time playtesting the solo game and not the multiplayer game. I've noticed most (but not all) of the bugs and glitches have been related to doing things in multiplayer.

The solo game feels fine. But multiplayer? That feels a bit half-baked to me.

 

[Corrie]

I feel like a lot of developers, Nintendo or not, aren't afraid of releasing a game because if there are glitches, they can just patch them later. Before, they had to make sure the game was solid because digital updates weren't a thing like they are now. Just a speculation.

 

[Mars Adept]

The solo game feels fine. But multiplayer? That feels a bit half-baked to me.

I swear the loading times get longer with each new game LOL

 

[Corrie]

Example, remember Pokemon X and Y? Remember the taxi glitch in that big city (Lumiose I think it was called) that would cause your game to restart or something like that if you used the taxis? They patched it later but that was insane.

 

[*Maddy*]

I don't think recent glitches show that it's been rushed I think the reason is because I doubt they had as many playtesters as they have current people playing. Obviously in the new people playing more glitches are going to be found that they didn't even think about! If say it's just a matter of the widespread gameplay that make it easier to discover more

 

[Llunavale]

I don't think so. I mean, who knows right? It's not like we'll ever be told, we can only speculate.

I think the multiplayer is a bit rough around the edges, but I suspect it's a lot of testing specific use cases and not enough testing of edge cases. I can't speak for how Nintendo work of course, but it's not uncommon now to have automated tests run against code and it's entirely possible that independently those tests can "pass," but in actual use they can cause issues together or when combined with some unexpected external factor.

I just think it's a natural part of development, honestly. This sort of stuff is difficult and only gets more difficult, and the gaming landscape is very much focused on getting content out currently, rather than refining features and releasing a "flawless" experience. I don't think anyone is at fault; these things happen.

 

[angiepie]

I honestly think so. I think that the pandemic happening so quickly didn’t help either so they were even more desperate to get it out on time especially since the internet was pushing for an even earlier release.

 

[SilverFireflyLights]

I don't think there has ever been a game that has released that was not on a time crunch. All companies have deadlines and it's extremely bad to postpone release dates because the "hype" for a game can take too long and people will actually not buy the game anymore because, usually, people tend to forget and other, better games get released. I have played a lot of games that were multiplayer and this game is considerably doing well. I haven't experienced the glitches or bugs but I have heard about them. Every game has bugs and, like previous users mentioned, it's mostly because people are doing things that the developers did not expect. Heck, there are always glitches and bugs in league of legends and that game has been out for over a decade.. I also think that the updates are cute and it gives us more things to look forward to. In a way, it's a smart tactic to keep us playing because wouldn't it be a bit boring if all the items were already in game and easy to get through time travel? I honestly think that, compared to other newly released multiplayer games, New Horizon is well developed and has a "complete" feeling for a new player like me.

 

[sdw4527]

It was patched in the Welcome amiibo update I think, along with several other glitches like the net glitch.

Either way, it took them a much longer time to patch a "gamebreaking glitch" as the OP classifies it as than it did here. As many people have already stated, the audience that plays NH is many times larger than the one that played NL. Not to mention NH is more complex than NL. Each person is essentially a tester. When you have that many people testing a game, you're bound to find issues that would have slipped through the cracks by a much smaller QA team. I would be expecting a lot more issues had this game been rushed out and the developers were under a time crunch the whole time.

 

[vChroma]

I'm of the opinion that although the game was delayed, I feel that Ninty had the intention to release features over time to keep players interested in the long run. I really welcome this because one of the complaints I and my friends had about the previous titles was that there was little variety after "beating" the game. Aside from Welcome Amiibo, there was completing the furniture/item catalog, filling the museum, etc, etc.. What made me open AC every once in a while was honestly so I could say goodbye to my villagers and start a new game.

Could they have been more transparent about it? Absolutely, but I'll be enjoying the game hopefully until the next installation. ☺

edit: as for the glitches? Game devs can't catch everything, and modern game engines carry more variables. It's hard to write a test case for everything