According to a new Polygon interview with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is going to get plenty more updates throughout 2021 after its huge success this year. The game – which performed “well beyond expectations” according to Bowser – owes a lot to its user-generated content, which has helped the title maintain a core audience since it launched back in March 2020. This will be the focus for the game going forward and will inform the updates that arrive over the next year, too. Bowser sees “two potential avenues” for how the game will grow and progress in the future. One is informed by the “update schedule that comes from the developers” which can be formed “around seasons, […] around events, [and] around enhanced gameplay features”. “The [user-generated content], and people’s ability to really lean into user-generated content and make that available and to share that with their friends” is what makes the game unique, Bowser says. “And that doesn’t happen on any cadence. That’s an ongoing, constantly changing and evolving environment where people can visit each other’s islands and take advantage of that [user-generated content], bring it to their islands and share it. “So I think that’s another aspect that really is strengthening the engagement over time with Animal Crossing.” Bowser concludes that Nintendo will “definitely” continue to release updates that allow users to make more of their own content in the coming year. Elsewhere in the same interview, the Nintendo boss downplayed reports of a Switch Pro model, saying that the Switch is “halfway through its life”.
