Thursday morning in America brought Animal Crossing fans with joy and excitement with its Animal Crossing New Horizons Direct. There were some questions fans were concern about but Nintendo has put most of it to bed. Here’s some of the key features that are coming to Animal Crossing New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch.

Customize Your Island

When starting the game, you’ll be given options to what layout you want to start with your island and what region. Your region can experience different seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. Originally, villagers who come to your town could place their house anywhere. That’s not the case anymore. You’ll have the power to tell which spots villagers can build their homes. Now you can continue with your beautiful plans of your dream island without residents ruining it for you.

After you settle in with your island, you’ll be able to customize the landscape. Yes, the island itself. This is the first in the series to modify landscape. Players can alter rivers and land. Want the river to flow more east? Done. You want hills to extend more north? You got it. Animal Crossing just made customization a lot more entertaining than just clothing and hair.

Nook Service

After arriving to your island, Tom Nook will not only help you get a place to sleep but he’ll lend you a Nook Phone. Giving you access to view recipes, map, notes, camera, passport, Nook Miles, custom designs, rescue service and more.

Nook Miles is a currency used in New Horizons. Instead of saving up bells to pay debt, players will need to do activities and travel to pay off your travel package. Catching certain amount of fish or collect a certain amount of items gain you miles towards your debt. This is one of the biggest changes in Animal Crossing.

While exploring, if you happen to get lost or just too lazy to go back, there’s a rescue team that’ll help you get home safely. While not confirmed, Mr. Resetti may have a new job as part of the rescue team now that his old gig in previous Animal Crossing games is no more.

Play While Away

Players can use Nintendo Switch Online mobile app for Animal Crossing New Horizons called the Nook Link. Being a subscriber, you can do a few things for the game. For example, you can voice and text chat in the game. Scan QR codes from patterns in previous Animal Crossing games. More details to come as the service becomes available in March.

8 Villagers, 1 Island

You can have up to eight Nintendo accounts on your console that can live on your island on a single copy of Animal Crossing New Horizons. Simultaneously, you can have up to eight players online or locally visiting your island with the help of Dodo Airlines. Players can share the experience together with up to four as a team. One player is the leader as the others follow. Leaders can swap their roles with others so everyone gets a turn.

Friends can no longer chop your trees down on your island or on theirs. If you are on their best friend list, you’ll have more access to do more activities on their island. Vice versa on your island.

amiibo!

If you’ve been collecting those Animal Crossing cards and figures, you can brush the dust off them now. Scanning these can unlock characters to visit your campsite and invite them to take a photoshoot with. However not all amiibo are supportive at launch and possibly will be in the future.

Free Updates

Animal Crossing New Horizons will have free updates after its launch. The first one being on March 20th when the game releases. First update celebrates Bunny Day event and appears to be more events for special holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, etc. Also if you play Animal Crossing Pocket Camp mobile game, players can receive special items in both the mobile game and New Horizons. More details to come.

Backup Data

Unfortunately there will not be cloud support for the game. However, Nintendo has not forgotten how important that data is. In fine print during the direct, if your Nintendo Switch console is damaged or stolen, Nintendo can bring your data back for one time as a Nintendo Switch Online member. The odd part is the “lost” console, which means that its possible Nintendo can grab your Animal Crossing data through their own cloud backup. This still remains how this works exactly but at least Nintendo is attending the issue. Transferring data between Switch consoles will not be available until later in the year.

If that wasn’t enough, you can watch the official Animal Crossing New Horizons Direct below to see these new additions in action. Animal Crossing New Horizons releases March 20, 2020 for the Nintendo Switch.