With so much time having passed since Animal Crossing: New Horizons received its big 2.0 update, and any smaller updates that were released afterward only addressing bugs and performance issues, everyone naturally assumed that the game's life had ended. However, Animal Crossing: New Horizons shocked fans by announcing both a Switch 2 version and a massive 3.0 update completely out of the blue. While the Switch 2 version of the game features higher resolution, 12-player multiplayer, Joy-Con mouse controls, and the megaphone item to call NPCs to the player, it’s the 3.0 update that has gotten the most attention.
The focus on Animal Crossing: New Horizons' 3.0 update is understandable given everything that it adds to the game. The main attraction is a hotel run by Kapp’n’s family, which allows players to attract new Villagers to their island that will stay in said hotel’s rooms. Mr. Resetti takes on a larger role, as players can use him to clear flowers and custom designs off specific areas of their island, while new collaborations with LEGO, Zelda, and Splatoon are on the way. Slumber Islands are another huge addition, as players get 3 extra Islands to decorate alongside their friends however they see fit. Yet for all these neat additions, it’s a simple quality-of-life mechanic — multi-craft — that really steals the show.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons ‘Craft Multiple’ Mechanic is 5 Years Overdo
With every single update to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, fans had hoped that Nintendo would introduce the option to craft multiple copies of an item. Yet with each patch that released, this addition was absent despite it being a staple of other cozy games like Hello Kitty: Island Adventure, Palia, and many more. Update 2.0 felt like the last chance for Nintendo to grant this wish, and sadly, it did not, seemingly leaving this simple quality-of-life mechanic as a “what if” scenario. Fortunately, update 3.0 is finally addressing this omission, as players will be able to choose the number of each item they want to craft once the update arrives on January 15, 2026.
While this may sound like such a small quality-of-life request that it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, the reality is that it was incredibly tedious to craft items one by one. Players do a lot of crafting in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and there are some items that players need to be crafted in bulk. The greatest example of this is the bait required for fishing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, as players will need hundreds of pieces to catch every fish. In fact, crafting bait piece by piece proved so tedious that a market emerged for the material on the trading platform Nookazon. Because it took so long to gather and craft bait, players who didn’t want to go through the process themselves would trade high amounts of Bells and Nook Miles Tickets for full batches of bait. Fortunately, the days of hurt fingers from spamming the craft button will soon be in the past.
Multi-craft isn’t the only quality-of-life feature coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, as storage space will be increased from 5,000 to 9,000 to compensate for trees, shrubs, and flowers being storeable.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Bigger Additions Have Drawbacks Multi-Craft Doesn’t
While QoL additions are inherently great for every player, the same can’t be said for other types of content. For instance, there’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ upcoming hotel. While the idea of the hotel is fun and all, the most dedicated fans of the series will likely have a feeling of “been there, done that” upon seeing the addition. After all, decorating themed rooms to inspire Villagers to come and stay is basically the exact same premise as the Happy Home Paradise DLC. For anyone who sunk hours into that expansion, one of the main attractions of update 3.0 is essentially a free version of something that they already paid for.
The saving grace for the hotel could be its gift shop, as perhaps it will include a lot of fun new Animal Crossing: New Horizons furniture for players to chase.
The Slumber Islands are similarly bittersweet. While they are undoubtedly a cool feature, a lot of players may be looking at them through a lens of regret. After all, roughly four years passed between update 2.0 and update 3.0. With this in mind, many players craving more Animal Crossing likely bit the bullet and restarted their islands, deleting their hard work just to have a new place to decorate and new goals to chase. Had Slumber Islands been added a few years ago, these unlucky players wouldn’t be in such a devastating position. To be clear, both Slumber Islands and the Hotel are exciting additions, as the former is a way to finally design islands with friends and the latter is a good alternative for those who didn’t purchase Happy Home Paradise. That said, multi-craft takes the cake as the true star of this update, as it’s impossible to complain about a feature fans have wanted since the game debuted.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 90 /100 Critics Rec: 99%
- Released
- March 20, 2020
- ESRB
- E for Everyone: Comic Mischief
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo EPD
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
