Even though support ended in November 2021, New Horizons is rising from the ashes on January 15th, 2026, when it launches on the Nintendo Switch 2. On top of that, Version 3.0 will be released for both Switch platforms, bringing tons of new content and features. Here are 15 things you should know before diving in.

4K in TV Mode

Animal Crossing: New Horizons finally makes the jump to 4K, showcasing your island, all its residents and various happenings in crisp higher resolution (while in TV mode, of course). However, it’s still capped at 30 frames per second, whether you’re playing docked or in handheld mode. Why? Well, there are many potential reasons why, but for now, if you’re used to the Switch 1 version’s frame rate, you should be right at home.

Mouse Controls

On the bright side, there’s mouse support with the right Joy-Con 2. You can finally decorate with all the freedom that a cursor allows, including dragging and selecting multiple items and moving them at once. Of course, that’s only the start – imagine making custom bulletin boards with the paint tools available, and even hand-writing messages for all to see.

12 Player Online Sessions

Ever been constrained by the arbitrary play limits on your island? The Switch 2 Edition is expanding on that, from eight players per session to a whopping 12. That may not seem like much (at least, for the regular island but we’ll get to that). And yet, there’s something nice about having so many people, just running around, admiring everything you’ve built.

CameraPlay

Of course, they don’t just have to admire it through words. Thanks to GameChat and CameraPlay, you can see their actual expressions above their characters’ heads. All for the low, low price of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription and the Switch 2 Camera.

Megaphone and Switch 2 Mic Support

When thinking about how else the Switch 2 version could leverage the console’s many features, someone at Nintendo conceived of an ingenious addition: A megaphone that uses the built-in mic. If you’ve ever wanted to shout at your residents for whatever reason, this is finally your chance. Oh, and it also helps to easily locate them.

Resort Hotel

All of the previously mentioned features are exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, but a free update, Version 3.0, will also be made available to Switch 1 players on the same day. It adds a brand new feature, the Resort Hotel, which welcomes guests from outside the island. You can help by decorating the guest rooms, selecting a theme and then filling them with the corresponding furniture and items. If a guest enjoys their stay, they’ll compliment your design skills.

Hotel Tickets and Souvenir Shop

Of course, the real appeal is the Hotel Tickets, doled out by Kapp’n for a job well done. These can then be exchanged at Grams’ Souvenir shop for new items, including hotel decorations, furniture, t-shirts, and much more. If you like a particular set of items and want to bring some of that resort comfort to your own home, this is quite literally the ticket.

Crafting Island Goods for Hotel Tickets

Tom Nook is a wily one, so of course, he wants to get involved in the Hotel Resort business. Fortunately, that only requires crafting island goods, including desks and wardrobes. Gathering the materials and crafting these bestows Hotel Tickets, so it’s well worth taking up a few tasks. And for those who have spare materials lying around, this is the perfect place to spend them.

Expanded Home Storage

With so many new items added, not counting the thousands already available, storage problems are inevitable. Thankfully, Version 3.0 lets you upgrade your home storage further. You can go from 5000 to 7000 and eventually 9000 slots for even more space. Better yet, it’s possible to store trees, shrubs and flowers, which pairs very well with another excellent new feature.

Resetti Service

So you’ve made a mess on your island and don’t want to clean it up. Cue Resetti’s new Reset Service, which will tidy up a specified location. If there are flowers or custom designs in the location, you can choose to leave them alone, store them away or get rid of them entirely. Alongside a single area, Resetti’s Reset can also be applied to the beach and the entire island if you want to start from scratch.

Slumber Islands

Dreams, as nifty as they were, could be a little too restrictive. In response, Nintendo is adding Slumber Islands, a blank space that becomes available while sleeping, which you can customize (including choosing small, medium and large sizes, each with different layouts and arrangements), terraform and decorate with any of your existing items. Adjust the time of day and weather, invite residents from your island and even visit other players’ Slumber Islands to collaborate. You can save up to three Slumber Islands, so decorate, build up and tear down to your heart’s content.

LEGO Items and Furniture

Remember when we mentioned tons of new items? That includes, for the first time, LEGO items. You can purchase beds, fireplaces, sofas, tables, T-shirts and even a LEGO DIY workbench via Nook Shopping. Deck out your home in LEGO-only items or mix and match with Resort Hotel furniture and existing items for a unique look.

The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon Collaboration

Even more items abound if you have amiibo for The Legend of Zelda or Splatoon. The former includes the Triforce, Master Sword and even outfits from across the series. You’ll also see Tulin from Breath of the Wild visiting the island, and they can settle down if you wish. As for Splatoon, a compatible amiibo sees Cece and Viché, based on Shiver and Frye, visiting your island, and various items based on the franchise, including Big Man chairs (which isn’t disturbing at all), can be purchased.

$5 Paid Upgrade for Switch 1 Owners

On the Nintendo Switch 2, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will cost $64.99, which may seem like a strange price. But that’s because those who own the Nintendo Switch 1 version can upgrade for $4.99, so the math checks out. Overall, even if you’re not upgrading to the Switch 2, there’s more than enough content in Version 3.0 to warrant revisiting the island, reconnecting with old friends and making some new ones along the way.

Switch 2 players benefit from 4K resolution in Docked mode at 30 FPS, mouse controls for writing on the bulletin board and crafting your own designs, and microphone support when you want to scream at your residents. It also supports up to 12 players in co-op and CameraPlay, if you must see each other’s faces while causing mischief.

As for the free update, it introduces the Resort Hotel. It includes new furniture and clothes for visiting guests while decorating dedicated rooms for them. Those with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription can also save three islands to play alongside friends. You can upgrade storage to hold 9,000 items (which now includes trees, shrubs and flowers) and even use the new Reset Service.

If that wasn’t enough, NSO members can also collect classic titles and play them. You can collect LEGO items and even take advantage of amiibo from The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon to invite “certain characters” with items tied to their appearances.

The artist now works at Playtonic Games, who last shipped Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair following the mediocre original. Fans seem to be quite nostalgic about the “good old days of Donkey Kong“, as they share their experiences with the franchise in response to the original tweet.

There’s still no word on the next installment in the franchise, although rumors seem to suggest that Nintendo EPD is currently working on a new Donkey Kong game. The game is rumored to be a 40th-anniversary celebration, suggesting its release to be this very year. Nintendo didn’t reveal anything related to the matter during its E3 2021 Direct, so fans should keep expectations in check for now.

So yes, that a new Zelda game is coming should have surprised no one. But what was surprising about this set of job listings that we got yesterday was not that they were put out, or that a new game is in the works—it was that the studio advertising them was Monolith Soft, not Nintendo. Monolith Soft, the makers of the Xenoblade franchise, are apparently recruiting for a Zelda game.

Now, to be fair, Monolith Soft has worked on Zelda for almost a decade at this point. They assisted Nintendo EPD with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and also with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (the former case taking up so much of their manpower that they ere left with a skeleton crew to develop their own Xenoblade Chronicles 2). Them assisting on a new Zelda game really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

But the question here is, why would they be recruiting for support work on Zelda at all? There may be another possibility—that Monolith Soft is actually developing this new Zelda game themselves—and there is a lot to suggest that this would be a good move for Nintendo.

First, let’s make some things clear—when I say “Monolith is working on Zelda”, the implication is that they are working under the oversight of key EPD personnel, most notably Eiji Aonuma. They don’t just get full free reign to make a Zelda game, and Aonuma and Nintendo still get final say. This, in fact, is the kind of collaboration Nintendo has already had with the Zelda franchise before—when Capcom’s Flagship studio was allowed to work on The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, and The Minish Cap. So it’s not unprecedented in the slightest, and Monolith is still a Nintendo-owned studio, where Capcom was a third party partner entirely.

All of which is to say, the regular objections—“Nintendo would never do that”, and “Nintendo would never give another studio free reign”—are moot. The answer to the first one is, yes they would, they have before, and to a third party, unlike Monolith who are still a first party; the answer to the second one is, this would still happen with Nintendo’s oversight.

With those objections out of the way, exactly what problem is it that I propose that a Monolith-developed Zelda game will solve? The answer is simple, and it is one of timing. It is undeniable and indisputable that Zelda games are now taking an extremely long time to develop. Twilight Princess followed four years after The Wind Waker, Skyward Sword came five years after Twilight Princess, and Breath of the Wild came a whopping six years after Skyward Sword. With Breath of the Wild, even accounting for things like the development of a new engine, which can be reused for multiple games going forward, as well as assets, which can be used at least once more, it’s clear that there is a patter of long development cycles with these games.

Now, also consider this—the Switch is an incredible success because it had a generation defining Zelda game that accompanied its launch. Breath of the Wild was what it was because Nintendo essentially threw unlimited time and resources at it—a luxury it was afforded by being able to take six years to come together, even skipping a whole Nintendo console cycle along the way for all purposes, so that it could be what it became. The Switch’s early success, which was crucial for it to become what it is today, was solely attributable to Breath of the Wild. The demographics on the Switch, favouring deeper games, and purchasing multiple games, are owing to Nintendo’s killer app for the Switch being Breath of the Wild, a generation-defining game that first and foremost appealed to the enthusiast crowd, before breaking out with the general public.

Breath of the Wild is hardly the first time a Nintendo console launch has benefitted from an accompanying Zelda game, either. Indeed, Nintendo was basically repeating the stunt they had originally pulled in 2006, with Wii and Twilight Princess. Put simply, there is clearly a correlation between a Nintendo console launching alongside an anticipated Zelda game, and having early success. It’s probable that for now, Nintendo will not want to mess with that winning formula of having a landmark Zelda game be a launch game for their consoles going forward.

But the problem is, such landmark Zelda games take time to develop—time that if Nintendo were to take, they would be unable to deliver a follow-up to Breath of the Wild on the Switch in. So you see Nintendo’s conundrum—clearly, Breath of the Wild needs a follow-up for Nintendo to capitalize on it. But doing so means that time and resources that could be given to a Switch 2 launch Zelda game are now diverted—at that point, a Switch 2 Zelda game would either come years after the Switch 2 itself had launched, or would be an incremental follow-up to the Switch Zelda games, or possibly both. In any of those cases, Nintendo doesn’t have the kind of launch Zelda game they need.

A Zelda game developed by Monolith Soft, then, with oversight from EPD, and using the same resources and engine that Breath of the Wild used, while EPD themselves toil away at the future Switch 2 launch Zelda game, is what resolves the paradox—now, Nintendo haas a Breath of the Wild follow up ready to go in a few years after the original launched, without diverting from the development of the Switch 2 launch game. They can have their cake and eat it too.

A Monolith developed Zelda game also has the chance to be experimental, and appeal to those segments of Zelda fans who may have been put off by Breath of the Wild’s singular clarity of vision and emphasis on mechanics, at the expense of all else. There is a sizeable contingent of Zelda fans that appreciates storytelling, characters, and dungeons in their Zelda games, and those are three areas where Breath of the Wild is largely considered to have dropped the ball. It’s hard to imagine a Monolith Soft game not doing storytelling or characters well, for instance; presumably, without the pressure to carry a console launch as well, Monolith and EPD could afford to go a bit weirder with this game. Some of the most beloved Zelda games have been ones that went “weird”—Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask are the prime examples of that. Nintendo could easily deliver a new Zelda game in that mould as well.

For fans of Monolith Soft, who wouldn’t want a Zelda game to impede development of their own projects, it’s important to note that that wouldn’t necessarily happen. Monolith Soft is a big studio, with multiple teams, and they can easily divert a few, or even the bulk, of their resources to this Zelda game and still chip away at their own project in the background (in fact, this already happened with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, while most of the studio was involved with Breath of the Wild).

Put simply, then, we could be looking at a brand new Zelda game coming soon, developed by the creators of Xenoblade, that goes weird and experimental, focuses on story and characters, all while Nintendo EPD work on a more traditional, big-scale Zelda game, ready for the Switch 2 launch, to propel it into the stratosphere. And all of this would be without the hypothetical Monolith-led Zelda losing the Nintendo flavour (since key EPD personnel would still be overlooking the project) and without Monolith’s next original project suffering (since Monolith has a lot of manpower). For Zelda fans and for Monolith fans, this is an all-around win-win situation. It’s a smart gambit for Nintendo, and an easy way for them to have their cake and eat it too—as for us Zelda fans, it’s the best timeline, because we get double the Zelda goodness that we would have otherwise gotten.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Nintendo has been doing a good job preparing demos for its Switch releases – Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eeevee! are prime examples, along with Yoshi’s Crafted World. However, tomorrow it will commence a Special Demo “event” for Splatoon 2. The third person shooter first released in 2017 and has sold over 8 million copies as of December 2018.

The Special Demo event will run from March 19th, 7 AM PT to March 25th, 6:590 AM PT. Since Nintendo Switch Online is required to play, downloading the Splatoon 2 demo will grant a free seven day trial for the service. In terms of content, you can expect Regular Battles, Ranked Battles up to level 10, and Salmon Run.

If that wasn’t enough, the digital edition of Splatoon 2 will be discounted by 20 percent. The offer will be available from tomorrow at 7 AM PT till March 28th, 8:59 AM PT. Check out GamingBolt’s official review of the base game. Splatoon 2 also has the paid Octo Expansion, which adds tons of new single-player content.

Curious about #Splatoon2? Good news, a Special Demo event is happening from 3/19 7:00am PT to 3/25 6:59am PT!
You'll need a Nintendo Switch Online membership to participate, but download the demo from Nintendo eShop, & you’ll receive a free 7-day trial for Nintendo Switch Online! pic.twitter.com/QsLmWO21JZ

— Nintendo Versus (@NintendoVS) March 18, 2019

As an added bonus, the digital version of #Splatoon2 will be available with a 20% discount on the Nintendo eShop starting 3/19 at 7am PT until 3/28 at 8:59 am PT.

— Nintendo Versus (@NintendoVS) March 18, 2019

Having sold over 10 million units in less than a year since its launch, the Nintendo Switch has been a massive success for Nintendo. When you consider where the company was with the Wii U, this is a massive step up and there’s even more to come in the future as indie developers and third party publishers provide support.

That being said, Nintendo EPD (Entertainment, Planning and Development) general manager Shinya Takahashi feels it’s “too early” to talk about the company’s success. Speaking to Engadget, Takahashi said, “We want more people to have these kinds of experiences, so that’s what we have been working towards.

“But that’s also why I feel that it is too early to talk about our success. Rather, I feel like we are still on the road to that success. We would like to see so many more people having these experiences, and I do believe that we can get there.”

The sentiment is understandable because even with so many units sold, the Nintendo Switch has yet to hit its first year anniversary. Titles like Metroid Prime 4, Bayonetta 3 and the next Pokemon which could be system sellers have also yet to be dated. Whether they’ll arrive next year or not – and if they can compete with this year’s awesome line-up – remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, Nintendo projects 17 million Switch units sold by April 2018 and early indications state that they’ll hit this number without any issues. What are your thoughts on the whole matter? Let us know below.

Nintendo is currently on fire, delivering hit after hit, industry defining games and critically acclaimed software on an almost monthly basis. So of course, as 2017 comes to a close, all eyes are on them to see how they plan on continuing this momentum next year.

This new job listing that has emerged for a 3D action adventure game planner at the company’s Kyoto office gives us some hints and clues- specifically, it sounds like Nintendo EPD is looking for someone to fill that post. Now, there are multiple takeaways here- 3D action adventure tells us the general type of game Nintendo is looking at making; and the fact that they are looking for a new planner indicates that this isn’t an established IP like Zelda or Mario, who have specific producers and directors who return to work on them for each new installment.

So- a new IP? Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma did say he wanted to work on a new game starring thieves. Or are we looking at a revival of an older IP, such as Star Tropics? It will be interesting to see what this turns out to be.

One of the most prestigious award ceremonies worldwide are The Golden Joystick awards; mostly source to the UK public’s opinion and vote, they usually kick off the end of the year awards season, and are a good indication of what to expect from the other GotY awards going forward.

And this year, the top honors were taken by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Of course- even in a crowded year like this one, that game was a shoe in. Breath of the Wild won the Best Nintendo Game, Best Audio, Best Switch Game, the Critics Choice Award, and the Ultimate Game of the Year Award; Nintendo EPD was also awarded the Best Developer of the Year award, so that’s another feather in its cap.

That aside, Horizon won Best PlayStation Game, Best Storytelling, with Ashly Burch winning the best VA award for Aloy as well. So some great games had great showings.

Now to see how the other GotY awards go down.

[via ResetEra]

The Nintendo Switch’s success caught everyone off guard, most of all Nintendo, who have been scrambling to produce enough units of the damn thing to be able to meet the overwhelming global demand for it worldwide since it launched back in March. Speaking to EDGE (in issue #309), Nintendo EPD’s Yoshiaki Koizumi, who was heavily involved in the creation of the Switch, revealed his thoughts on its success.

“It’s half expected and half surprising,” he said. “I always feel a certain amount of confidence in my work, and I imagine a lot of different scenarios. The one that’s come to fruition was one of the better ones I was imagining! We wanted people to have more time to play games.”

He also revealed some information about how EPD approaches the creation of a new Mario game- he is heading the development of the eagerly anticipated upcoming Super Mario Odyssey.

“Mario games begin development not with just one idea, but many,” he revealed. “You’ll have some ideas from previous projects that you weren’t able to incorporate into the final product, and maybe a few new ideas. Once you put them all together you start to see a little bit of a vision about how the game’s going to look and play as a whole.

“Once you have enough of those, you can start to prototype each of those, play them, and see which ones naturally fall out because they don’t fit, or aren’t as much fun. Before long, you have a game concept that is starting to define itself.”

Super Mario Odyssey is due out exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on October 27 this year. Hopefully, by that time, Nintendo will have sorted out the production problems and supply constraints plaguing the system at least somewhat so that the people worldwide who want to get a Switch for themselves to play its fantastic lineup are able to without issue.

Complete Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard with help of this HD video walkthrough and game guide. Star Fox Guard is basically a mini-game that has tower defense mechanics. Star Fox Zero on the other hand is neither a sequel or a prequel of the original game. In fact, Nintendo has stated that this is not even a remake.

Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard are now available for the Nintendo Wii U. The game was developed by Nintendo EPD and PlatinumGames, and published by Nintendo. 

Check out the video walkthroughs of Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below. For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.