When stay-at-home orders were issued and nearly everything was delayed or even cancelled, Nintendo’s ‘Animal Crossing‘ came to the rescue. The Nintendo Switch game connected people all around the world and brought the light-hearted fun we all needed in the face of this pandemic.
It’s been months since all of this started and Coronavirus still isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Luckily, neither is the fun.
On July 3, Nintendo will release a free summer update for ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘. This will bring new content to the game including a much anticipated feature: swimming. This will also mark the first of two “waves” of summer updates.
What better way to celebrate summer than to lay on the sofa and play video games? The outdoors are overrated anyway — at least now they are. In all seriousness, this summer update looks like a great addition to the game. The last update the game received was an April update, which added gardening and an art seller.
This update is still along those lines, but is promising to be a bit more significant.
Grab Your wet Suit, TIme to Swim
For the first time in ‘New Horizons,’ explore the water around your island. Considering the game centers around islands, swimming is a huge feature–one fans were disappointed wasn’t available at the game’s release. Better late than never though, right?
To access this feature, you’re going to need to purchase a wet suit in the game. But don’t worry, everything in this free update can be purchased with in-game currency. The only thing you’ll need to spend is a little extra time playing.
Get your friends and family to hop on with you and start gathering those bells. You know you want to hop into the water as soon as the update drops. Unless you’re one of the people who pays actual money to get things faster. In that case, why don’t you just go sit down and rethink your life.
‘Animal Crossing’ will also be reintroducing Pascal, a chill sea otter who appeared in previous titles. You can find him out in the ocean casually treading water. Go up to him to get access in brand new recipes you don’t want to miss. You can also expect some run-ins with the character Gulliver as he occasionally washes up on shore. Help him out to unlock some special rewards.
Get Ready for Wave 2
Swimming is a pretty significant difference from how the game is usually played. It’ll add much more things to do and give players several additional reasons to return to the game. Especially the ultra-bored players who did everything there was to do in ‘Animal Crossing’ during the first few days of quarantine.
July 3 isn’t the only summer update hitting ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ this season however. They are calling this update ‘Wave 1,’ and have already teased a ‘Wave 2’ in the same announcement coming later in early August. Nintendo will be revealing information on that update soon.
We don’t know anything about Wave 2 just yet, but us players can expect it to be a free addition to ‘Animal Crossing’ that will bring with it new characters and features to play with.
By far, the best thing about these updates is that they’re free. Too many times we get updates for full-price games that cost even more money. This is especially a nice refresher for Nintendo who still requires a monthly subscription to play certain parts of Mario Kart Tour. Seriously, why the f-?!
Hopefully Nintendo continues to put out free DLC and expansions down the road, supporting these games for the long run. The free summer update for ‘Animal Crossing: new Horizons’ releases July 3 to all players. Will you be jumping in?
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