[Confirmed] Animal Crossing: New Horizons will force every individual Switch user account to share the same island

[Deleted member 7092]

IGN interviewed New Horizons director Aya Kyogoku on the day of the Nintendo Direct. But with all of the other E3 news going on at the time, this piece of information was largely overlooked:

Then, when it comes to online and local wireless, up to eight players can be on an island. This is doubled from New Leaf's previous 4-player limit. And though there is a travel theme to New Horizons, Kyogoku confirmed you can't set up a tent on a friend's island. However, Kyogoku told IGN you can make up to eight playable accounts on one Nintendo Switch and they will be able to live on the same island. You cannot have multiple islands, however.

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This is terrible news for anyone who shares a Switch system and wants to have a personalized Animal Crossing experience without forced collaboration.

I'd love for this to blow up like the Mario Maker 2 online friend play debacle since Nintendo swiftly took the backlash into consideration and reversed their decision. With how little traction this story has gotten though, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Nook the crook and his chintzy land deals strike again.

EDIT: Some people are interpreting the quote as saying users can only have one island per game file - not that every user has to share the same island. Based on the context of the quote and Nintendo's track record with these issues, I'm not convinced that's the case, but I want to be clear that there's some wiggle room in how this comment can be taken.

 

[Lynd]

Yeah that's not a good idea.

 

[Agentnibs]

That sounds good to me, that's basically how it was on the game cube

 

[Raccoon]

Good. Back in my day we didn't do this careless swapping out of carts to get a new town. If you had your own DS, you had the right to buy another copy of the game to play. These were the rules, and they served us well.

 

[Rand a. Thor]

I dunno, a community style Family Island where everyone lax and chills at their place while building it up to be something everyone contributes to sounds like a fun gimmick in all honesty. Also with a cheaper switch on the way this mindset doubles back to how Kirishima wanted one switch per household member and they will likely succeed.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Nintendo just because it's you it doesn't mean you need to have your multiplayer be a fucking monkey paw wish.

So you introduce up to 8 player multiplayer but I can't even make a unique shared island with friends we all have a house in? Am I reading that right?

 

[Mario_Bones]

It should be an option to have different users on the same island but definitely not forced. That's likely to cause a lot of sibling squabbles lol

 

[cw_sasuke]

Seems fitting considering the local coop option.

 

[Deleted member 14377]

Dumb as fuck. Why can't we ever get improvements across the board, Nintendo? Every flagship game.

"We heard you and have fixed a lot of issues and complaints about the previous entry."

Yayyy!

"But we also introduced a lot of other dumb shit or even took away features that you guys enjoyed and didn't complain about"

 

[Lkr]

This is the same as every other entry, no?

 

[Visanideth]

IGN interviewed New Horizons director Aya Kyogoku on the day of the Nintendo Direct. But with all of the other E3 news going on at the time, this piece of information was largely overlooked:



This is terrible news for anyone who shares a Switch system and wants to have a personalized Animal Crossing experience without forced collaboration.

I'd love for this to blow up like the Mario Maker 2 online friend play debacle since Nintendo swiftly took the backlash into consideration and reversed their decision. With how little traction this story has gotten though, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Nook the crook and his chintzy land deals strike again.

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Well, those people became terrorists the moment they exploited the Switch's portability to minimize Nintendo's hardware sales. You wouldn't share a cellphone, why would you share a Switch? Nintendo is acting in self defence here.

Spoiler

I'm sorry

 

[Jbone115]

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this how Animal Crossing has always worked?

 

[Deleted member 8791]

What I'm wondering is, is this a choice for Nintendo for one or the other? Could they have made it so each account could've made their own island but also play on one of the other account's islands? If no then they had to pick one and I'd say that makes it more ok.

 

[Nugnip]

Sounds cool, and I'm gonna use it, but it should be an option.

 

[Deleted member 7092]

That sounds good to me, that's basically how it was on the game cube

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It's fine as an option, but there's no reason to force it on people.

Here's copy taken from the game's blurb on Nintendo's website:

But deep down, isn't there a part of you that longs for…freedom? Then perhaps a long walk on the beach of a deserted island, where a rich wealth of untouched nature awaits, is just what the doctor ordered!

Peaceful creativity and charm await as you roll up your sleeves and make your new life whatever you want it to be.

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Being forced to design your island with other people completely goes against the idea of freedom and making your Animal Crossing experience "whatever you want it to be."

 

[LinLeigh]

I'm wondering how many of the people that are positive about this are parents.

Because the idea of sharing with my 5 year old is not great.

 

[QuigleyMcShine]

This is what I expected, and honestly it would probably be pretty confusing if they did ot another way. If each user account was a separate island my wife would have to load the game with my user to share an island with me.

 

[Dr. Mario]

I like this. Who shares a system but wants to play this game non socially?

(Teenagers I guys?)

 

[Raccoon]

Being forced to design your island with other people completely goes against the idea of freedom and making your Animal Crossing experience "whatever you want it to be."

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You're treating it like the people you share a Switch with are strangers. This is kid-brother tier. And besides, it'll likely get easier for kid-brothers to have their own Switches very soon.

 

[RPGam3r]

This idea seems ok to me, also I don't really think the backlash in Super Mario Maker 2 had any change other than announcing the change earlier than expected.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

I'm wondering how many of the people that are positive about this are parents.

Because the idea of sharing with my 5 year old is not great.

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Now Timmy, you know daddy loves you right? But see that corner of the island? That's daddy's corner. You keep away from there or no McDonald's for the next 5 years.

 

[MouldyK]

Uh...this don't make sense.

Like what if I'm on my account on someone else's switch?

Or is this also confirming no cloud saves?

 

[Kapryov]

This is how the game series always worked. You live in the same area as them, you share items or send mail to each other, it's fine.
It would be a bigger drama if they changed it.

 

[mclem]

I dunno, a community style Family Island where everyone lax and chills at their place while building it up to be something everyone contributes to sounds like a fun gimmick in all honesty.

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That was, as I understand it, exactly the original design philosophy of the game. I'm sure I recall it being like this on the GC version.

 

[Static]

What I'm wondering is, is this a choice for Nintendo for one or the other? Could they have made it so each account could've made their own island but also play on one of the other account's islands? If no then they had to pick one and I'd say that makes it more ok.

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I mean, I imagine that if they really wanted to, they could've asked you on character creation whether you'd like to move into an inhabited island with your friends or if you'd like to take a charter to a new desserted island, but... they didn't. Maybe they thought that would've been too complex for the player?

 

[Raccoon]

If they did let you have different towns on one Switch, there would be no way for users on different towns to play together at all.

 

[Brazil]

I'm ok with this. Sharing the same town with the other 3 players in the GC game was really fun. I loved seeing the stuff my brother and mom did with their houses.

 

[Mosaica]

Wait, the same save is used for every profile? I didn't even know that was possible.

Has any other game done this?

 

[Brewster123]

I personally am fine with this, but I do think there should be other options avalible to suit those who aren't.

 

[Crashman]

If I'm reading it right, its just the same as Animal Crossing always is. I'd have to assume that the reason each individual wouldn't have their own island on one cart is due to memory limitations which is probably an even bigger deal if it had to potentially do it up to 8 times

 

[H2intensity]

I don't see the problem? It animal crossing as usual. And I'm happy sharing my Island with my sons account.

 

[Deleted member 4292]

Yeah I don't get the bitching in here, Animal Crossing has always worked this way unless you had a different memory card or cartridge.

 

[Raccoon]

Once again, I'm saddened by the number of people who view the ideal Animal Crossing game as a crappy simulator game instead of an inherently social experience.

 

[Deleted member 7092]

You're treating it like the people you share a Switch with are strangers. This is kid-brother tier. And besides, it'll likely get easier for kid-brothers to have their own Switches very soon.

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I have my own Switch, so this decision doesn't impact me.

My three younger sisters, however, all share the same system. They all love the series, but their playstyles and design sensibilities are all wildly different. They shouldn't be forced to endure each other's clashing Animal Crossing lifestyle philosophies.

 

[Kneefoil]

That's really disappointing. Kind of like if you could still only have one Pokémon save across all of your Switch accounts.

I live alone now, so I don't have to share my town with family, like I did with Wild World, but please, Nintendo, just let me have multiple towns, dammit! ;_;

Good. Back in my day we didn't do this careless swapping out of carts to get a new town. If you had your own DS, you had the right to buy another copy of the game to play. These were the rules, and they served us well.

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Can't even just buy a new copy of the game anymore because the saves are on the Switch itself, not on the carts. :-/

 

[Deleted member 9584]

I have no issue with the one island per system, but to me this also sounds like no cloud saves because it would let you back up one town and start another while your old one stays in the cloud. Also if you try to download your cloud save onto someone else's system with a town, you will wipe their town.

Sounds like no cloud saves too?

 

[waffleboy]

Nintendo games always have one of these dumb restrictions that piss people off lol. Don't see why they can just give you the option of having a separate island or joining one. Maybe they don't want people to make dummy accounts to gift free shit to their real accounts?

 

[BGBW]

This is the same as every other entry, no?

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One could argue that with the GameCube version the save was per memory card so you could have multiple towns, but it has more or less always been one town per copy.

 

[Deleted member 53692]

That sounds good to me, that's basically how it was on the game cube

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If you rely on what we used to have, it should work that way :
Each Switch profile an Island (saves are different, like other Switch games), and for Animal Crossing, each save have 1 to 8 character-players (like previous Animal Crossing).

We don't know why they force the save sharing for Animal Crossing through Switch profiles.

 

[BlueRose]

I remember sharing a town with my family on the GameCube. I actually missed that shared experience in later entries, but while I'm happy to see it return, I think it should be optional. I understand that not everyone would enjoy sharing a town or community.

 

[Weebos]

Sounds fun actually, but I get why people want it to be optional.

 

[RPGam3r]

I'm wondering how many of the people that are positive about this are parents.

Because the idea of sharing with my 5 year old is not great.

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Have you watched the first Lego Movie?

 

[Deleted member 2791]

The only way for me to be okay with this is that, unlike with New Leaf, you can build separate houses on the same island and not having to be forced to live in the same house.

I don't mind playing in the same island as my siblings (especially since now we can actually play together) but we need to be able to each do our own thing if we want to.

 

[Grym]

I'm sure my elementary school son will be so happy when my elementary school daughter changes everything in his town... ...and vice versa...

 

[Lkr]

I'm wondering how many of the people that are positive about this are parents.

Because the idea of sharing with my 5 year old is not great.

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Or you could play with your 5 year old and teach him things and laugh at the damage he does to the town. You know, parenting. I shared the town with my family on the original GameCube and no one got salty. It's animal crossing bro

 

[Deleted member 9584]

The only way for me to be okay with this is that, unlike with New Leaf, you can build separate houses on the same island and not having to be forced to live in the same house.

I don't mind playing in the same island as my siblings (especially since now we can actually play together) but we need to be able to each do our own thing if we want to.

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You're thinking about Wild World. In New Leaf everyone has their own house, but only the original player was the mayor.

 

[Betty]

This is the exact same as New Leaf.

 

[BlueRose]

Or you could play with your 5 year old and teach him things and laugh at the damage he does to the town. You know, parenting. I shared the town with my family on the original GameCube and no one got salty. It's animal crossing bro

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I remember the Villagers would gossip about my family when I was playing. :D

 

[BradenAndEggs]

I respect the opinion of anyone impacted by this but this honestly won't bother me at all.

 

[Deleted member 2791]

You're thinking about Wild World. In New Leaf everyone has their own house, but only the original player was the mayor.

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Oh yeah right. The annoying bit about New Leaf was that only the first villager was the mayor.

I hope this time around everyone is treated the same.