How Animal Crossing New Horizons Got Multiplayer Wrong

[@SoraFan23]

Like others have said the load screens is what ruins the online. You cannot even take two steps without seeing the "Looks like someone's on their way here" or "Looks like someone's leaving" sound and you are forced to watch the cutscenes of whoever is leaving or coming. Its a bad idea for this game and they really need to rework it so it doesn't become so much of a pain.

[@souljahbill14]

You forgot to mention how when playing local multiplayer, those players don’t have any real agency over what they do. Everyone must stay on screen at all times and can’t interact with characters. They’re a ghost. Meanwhile, a Sega Genesis game, Toe Jam & Earl, allowed 2 player co-op where it would go to split screen when the characters separated and combined to a single screen when together. It’s a very obvious blunder than New Horizons didn’t implement local co-op in a similar fashion.

[@danc893]

The split-screen/combined screen hybrid method is by far the best way to do local multiplayer. A lot of the old Lego games, especially on the Wii, had it and it was so smooth and always worked perfectly. Since it combined when the characters were together, it wasn't an eyesore when you're next to each other like fully splitscreen games, but since it COULD split up, your characters could go to completely different spots and do whatever you wanted to do. Honestly, ACNH should've just had 2 player local multiplayer with the hybrid method

[@ChuyPlays]

That's so true!!! It's sad how lifeless being player 2, 3, or 4 can be.

[@Roodle143]

About how space was saved for the 8 homes, I haven't seen anyone make that point before and it's a great one! Now my biggest hope is that they just come out with another island that has all the stores we're missing, like maybe Kappn can take you there but with them moving Katrina to an app I barely used, my hopes are not high.

[@ChuyPlays]

I feel like that's a good possibility! And the airport is always a viable way to get there.

[@livvylotl]

This comment aged well ^-^

[@Leopardeye]

I feel the emptiness too. "Hey let's play animal crossing tonight!" "And...do what?" Awkward silence. The games fine alone. But in multiplayer, it's an utter drag. There is little to NOTHING to do. Catch a bug. A fish or two. Go home. At least New Leaf had a separate island with minigames.

[@ChuyPlays]

I did really enjoy shopping on other islands. I still need to visit others for tons of variants.

[@Em-gk7tp]

NINA CAMEO AT 5:00 SPOTTED! seriously though, really comprehensive view on the multiplayer - the local multiplayer actually takes up a lot more space in the discussion than I thought; since I barely play with that feature! great video, Chuy! :D

[@ChuyPlays]

Always gotta visit Nina for these videos! Her island is the best!

[@ninac.1835]

Done got caught

[@franklin-fq6vp]

The biggest mistake was that they never brought back the online mini games that was from New Leaf when you went on Tortimer Island. I mean seriously why did they leave that out? Maybe because they were too busy with the single player portion of the game that they spent little time with the online. All you do when you visit someone's island is shop, talk to their villagers, and you can get a design from their able sisters shop. Thats pretty much it. I know there is an argument that people made their own custom mini games on their island, while that is a cool and clever idea that still doesn't excuse Nintendo themselves for not even putting effort into the online. Out of all the Nintendo online games I've played this is the most underwhelming one yet, not to mention the load screens are so annoying whenever someone is leaving or coming.

[@ChuyPlays]

I need 4v4 minigames. That's all I'm saying.

[@Kuriie]

I never really thought about how much space the 8 player homes would take up but that's a pretty good point. Well rounded and well thought out video Chuy!

[@ChuyPlays]

Thank you Kuriie! You are awesome!!

[@GTAFan-kf9me]

I think everyone will agree that having loading screens when someone is coming or leaving that prevents you from doing what you want on the island is a bad idea.

[@ChuyPlays]

It's unfortunate that's how multiplayer has worked in animal crossing since wild world. They haven't found a better way yet.

[@iamjohnporter67]

Ugh. I was going to an island that was selling Turnips for 300 bells because apparently on my island my price kept on decreasing and according to the AC turnip calculator it turned out that it would keep on decreasing no matter what the days were. Feel frustrated I went to an island that was turnips for 300 bells per turnip and of course the let me pay a 10 nmt fee (I am not surprised that people still do this). So I went to the island and just as you suspected there was a lot of people. The constant "on their way here" and "leaving" screens were all over the place. I was able to sell my turnips but then, I had to wait 25 minutes because so many people kept on coming and leaving. I was stuck there for a long while and I was able to leave. I am sure the person on the island didn't intend for people to come back, but seriously the amount of people who keep coming back were the same ones with the dodo code. They should've just went back in the queue to wait but, they didn't know better. I say this because the host was so frustrated. I was frustrated myself also because I was stuck on the island. I know people don't like it when I complain about the game and I am sure they heard this argument so many times, but the online for New Horizons is so bad. I mean these loading screens are just the reasons why I never do trading and then I have to worry about so many people coming in and out.

[@ChuyPlays]

It is really hard to deal with turnips in this game! Organization is a luxury people often don't have to make that travel experience better.

[@honeyoceans55]

Great video- it’s always nice to hear a critical perspective that comes from a loving place. I love New Horizons and animal crossing overall, and I also agree that multiplayer was a major let down! I bought my older sister her first gaming console ever- a switch lite- just so she could play animal crossing. We’ve had endless hours of fun on our own, but we rarely play together because the inconvenience isn’t really worth the lack of content. every day I lament that we can’t have multiple islands per switch. I don’t even share my switch, I just have so many island themes I’m dying to try out and so many villagers I’d like to meet. Unfortunately, I don’t see local multiplayer improving. There’s hope for better online multiplayer with a potential mini game update, but as for local…I think we’re gonna have to wait until a new game.

[@ChuyPlays]

Very well put! I do have hope for a decent online multiplayer update!

[@LexPlayy]

It's wild to think they prioritized multiplayer at all given how slow and often buggy it is :/

[@ChuyPlays]

And how little people use it!!

[@meggietate49]

If they would allow each player on the island to store their own custom designs, it would make a huge difference. I thought the extra slots would be enough but it is not.

[@ChuyPlays]

That would honestly be huge! 800 custom designs if you had all 8 characters!

[@Fubuki43]

Not once have I used the Local Multiplayer function. They could’ve used that effort to add more shop upgrades and things to do :) I think the majority of players would’ve preferred that.

[@ChuyPlays]

It's actually a pretty nifty feature to buy more art and get more models per special character visit!

[@Fubuki43]

@@ChuyPlays Oh, that’s cool!

[@xmrmeow]

You bring up some great points. I kinda disagree that there's no way the stores could exist because of space though. In Happy Home Designer, there were various buildings you could customize, including a department store, and I've often thought it'd be super cool if you could add a department store to your town and use it to either aggregate a bunch of stores into one building where you customize the common area that connects them all, or you could just choose to have them as all separate buildings. It'd be up to the player depending on how urban they want their town to feel or how much extra space they have. Either way they get access to all the buildings, but they have the option for everything to only take up the space of 1 building. Throughout the Animal Crossing games, the museum has housed KK and cafe, the town hall included the post office, Nook's store had Shampoodle, so I see no reason why "not enough room" should be a reason to exclude things from the game.

[@ChuyPlays]

This is true! One big building that houses more shops is definitely a possibility.

[@TraciTariVlog]

Yes yes yes yes I agree with everything you said!! I find playing the game with friends on the same island WAY more fun than playing on my own!! A real shame... I also started on the GameCube version and loved playing with my friends.

[@dongela]

Wow this makes a lot of sense, unfortunately. I never really thought of the extra player houses taking up so much space.

[@ChuyPlays]

It's definitely not something people utilize too much.

[@drew3]

Do you think NH is kind of like Smash Ultimate in the way that they’ll just keep editing the game through DLCs instead of making an entirely new game?

[@Roodle143]

I would rather have that than what my biggest worry is: that NH was just a test game for the switch and 2 years from now theyll drop it and come out with a way better game. Like Pokemon lets go/swsh to Arceus legends

[@ChuyPlays]

Funny you mention this! My next video is about the content updates.

[@drew3]

Do you think they’ll keep adding character shops like Brewster’s? And if they can make changes like that do you think they could make a mini game island?

[@PopCultureFan_]

I dont believe that it starts laging with 4 local players, i HAVE however gone to one of those 'crowded as f islands ( i wouldnt exactly say it lags but it has serious rendering issiues, its too much for it to handle when theres soo much on screen, & personally i dont understand why they need to make it that crowded, not even nessiary to get 5 star, its also really annoying to navigate when someone has an island like that. Ive had 4 people at my island at once mind you it wasnt local, and for the most part i have never had lag problems, atleast it was small stuff, i alao had all the shops upgraded. Only thing that happens sometimes is i'll be visiting someone or they'll be visiting me and it'll just plain lose connection on the airport menu screen

[@TheBackRoom_Gaming]

I was surprised summer 2020 brought diving before making the mini game update. I 100% felt tortimer island would come after diving. Then to go another year with no tortimer island summer update (or no big update at all during summer), that just shows me how nintendo let one of the most popular games with so much potential just crumble. They are such fools... if they gave this game monthly updates like pocket camp, even though acnh doesnt have microtransactions, it would make people always talking about the game (free marketing/sales) and just keep the game going. I think ACNH could get real updates after Splat 3 is done? Really bad they made another splat game when we already had one on the switch (and when it will affect acnh development). Im a huge splatoon fan, but would have preferred they not do a splatoon 3. Its affecting the game we waiting so long for. Lets not forget this is the first nintendo console to charge for online - why not take a huge game like acnh and make the online have features? Could be a marketing push too - I could see tons of commercials promoting nintendo online showing mini game tortimer island

[@ChuyPlays]

The dev teams at nintendo are huge. It's a bit more complicated than the whole team moving over to splatoon 3. And with the pandemic, I imagine they moved devs to other games to help meet release dates.

[@TheBackRoom_Gaming]

@@ChuyPlays Idk - when I view the credits for ACNH, it seems really small. For example, I think they had like 2 people who worked on the models for the critters. I dont know the exact numbers, but I recall when viewing the staff, it seemed really small. Like what if they had 10 staff working on critters? Perhaps we could have gotten more to catch... They definitely should increase the staff for furniture/cloth assets as we need new stuff..

[@mehdigeek]

nice

[@painville]

Can’t hold on the stuff I pic if I’m not the leader ……man cmon this si trash

[@kennedywebb6995]

First