To Nuke Or Not To Nuke? Animal Crossing Players Prep For New Update

It wasn’t April Fool’s Day when Nintendo announced a big, new update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons—but mid-20s programmer Lemmy still thought it was a joke. His girlfriend sent him a link on Instagram, and he thought it was a fake announcement. He went straight to the source: Nintendo, where he realized that yes, Nintendo was releasing a new update for the five-year-old game.

Nintendo’s 3.0 update and Switch 2 upgrade for New Horizons will be released on January 15, the first big update to the game since 2021. New Horizons is far from a dead game, but its massive playerbase—which swelled during the COVID-19 pandemic—has, naturally, fell off. Those of us who spent hundreds of hours on our New Horizons islands for a year and a half have moved on; many of us haven’t visited our islands since. We’ve left messes on our islands, and remain forever indebted to Tom Nook. With the economy inevitably stalling after we took our “go get ‘em!” industriousness with us, the villagers we left behind have spent the last couple of years fending for themselves.

“[My girlfriend and I] played New Horizons when it released and then I pretty much played it every day for a year, and maybe a little less often for another six months,” Lemmy said. “I think I fully stopped playing it summer 2023.”

The new content and quality-of-life improvements it introduces make Nintendo’s 3.0 update the push many players needed to return to the game. But that raises a big question: To nuke or not to nuke? For some players, like Lemmy, the New Horizons 3.0 update was the perfect excuse not only to return to the game, but also to make a fresh start. “When I saw and heard about the update it persuaded me to restart,” he said. “I did that just before the new year.”

Morri Koester, a YouTube creator who has played New Horizons for more than 5,000 hours and built a dozen or so islands, told Kotaku that they aren’t making a new island, but are still using the new update “as an excuse to do things differently”—”new year, new me sort of vibes,” they said. Koester has been working on their current island for two years at this point, and unlocked nearly all of the DIYs and catalogue items. The big reason they’re not doing more to totally overhaul their island or start anew is because the 3.0 update has a feature that’ll essentially do that itself—Resetti. Resetti’s Reset Service is a quality-of-life feature intended to clear up big swaths of an island; it’ll remove flowers, decorations, and fencing from a specific area. (Everything, including flowers, shrubs, and trees, will go straight into inventory.) 

“My island is a mess because I refuse to do the man’s work for him, but I can’t wait to see that mess just poof into a blank canvas to start my new island theme,” Koester said.

Instead of completely restarting, Koester spent the time between the 3.0 announcement and the update’s release day working on a series of different goals—primarily, prepping to complete the Nook Miles goals they set for themself. The 3.0 update’s bulk crafting mechanic, which lets players craft in bulk straight from their inventory, means it’ll be easier to finish some of the harder Nook Miles tasks. One of the Nook Miles challenges that’s notoriously hard to complete is crafting 3,000 furniture items. Koester is looking to reach this goal in a day when the update is released; they’re collecting coconuts so they can craft nearly a thousand Coconut Juices—a furniture item in New Horizons, which requires only coconuts to craft—in a day.

“I know everyone has a specific opinion or strategy for preparing for the update, whether it’s cataloguing items or gathering resources, but my personal opinion is to prepare for what is going to give you the most joy in the game,” Koester said. “If that means restarting your island on update day to get the full 3.0 experience on a new island, do that. If that means cleaning out your inventory on your five-year-old forever island, do that! If that means collecting a crapton of coconuts like an obsessive gaming gremlin, do that. Prep is all in the mindset, not in specific gameplay.”

Lemmy, meanwhile, has spent the time between the update announcement and January 15 working through the early hours of any new island—opening the museum, saving resources.

“I just wanted a fresh start, especially to experience some of the changes and the DLC with a clean canvas, making use of the new items and features without ripping everything up first,” he told Kotaku. “My preparation is kind of just that—restarting. But also I’m just saving resources, not worrying about decorating my island or anything yet, and just progressing through the early parts of the game with as little planning as I can.”

Image: Nintendo

Players that are restarting don’t have to go it alone, though: Lots of players on social media and forums are offering to help support players looking to start over. “I’ve been going on and off mystery islands to collect materials for restart care packages,” one person on Reddit wrote. There’s no right or wrong way to experience a new update, but some players, indeed, do feel pressure to do things the “right” way; lots of players have spent a lot of time on their islands, perfecting every little detail, or rushing to gobble up all the new content.

But Koester wants to remind players that even the most seasoned players, like them, don’t necessarily feel prepared.

“It’s a big change to the game, with new mechanics, new buildings, new NPCs, and new items,” they said. “Seasoned and new players alike will experience it at the same time for the first time, which in itself is a pretty magical feeling to share. If you’re worried, just know that everyone is going through the ‘new’ feeling, and take it slow. Not everything has to be experienced at once. So no matter what, whether you’re starting a new island, had your island for years, stopped playing for a time, there is no being late to experiencing joy. You’re fashionably on time.”