Animal Crossing: New Horizons Development Began Before Team Knew About The Switch

It’s been a very long wait since we had a mainline Animal Crossing, and the newest one finally came at the end of last week, and boy, it’s going to be a big one. The game is already smashing records on the sales charts, and at a time when many people are being forced into isolation due to the global outbreak of COVID-19, it’s been a welcome relief. It’s well on its way to being one of the Switch’s biggest titles, but ironically, it began development well before the Switch existed.

In a long interview with The Washington Post, the game’s Director, Aya Kyogoku, dropped a really interesting tidbit of information. It seems that New Horizons has been in some form of development ever since 2012’s New Leaf released in Japan. As Kyogoku states, it started without “thinking or knowing about Nintendo Switch hardware.” While she doesn’t explicitly say it, this seems to also imply that New Horizons was, at one point, in development for the Wii U or 3DS (or both) before being moved on to the Switch. By the looks of how the game is doing, probably a good move there.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch, and it hopes that it can bring some light and hope into some very dark times.