Without a doubt, one of the biggest, most popular titles of 2020 was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Being a game that was released during the advent of COVID-19, it was the perfect title to play during lockdown and helped entertain and relieve stress despite the turbulent year.
The game brought in incredible sales for Nintendo, and it was so successful that it became one of the top sellers for the Nintendo Switch. Seeing as Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for quite a while now, many fans assumed that Nintendo would no longer be releasing updates for the game this 2021. However, the multinational company previously assured fans that this wouldn’t be the case.
True to its word, Nintendo recently announced the next free update that’s heading to the game. In fact, it will be launched within the next few days. The January update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is set to release this January 28, and its new content will mostly revolve around preparaing for the Festivale event that will take place in February.
Specifically, February 15 will see New Horizons players and villagers celebrating the Festivale event with a new NPC—none other than Pave the Peacock. While Pave is a new character to New Horizons, the character has made an appearance in the previous Animal Crossing game for the 3DS, New Leaf.
Just like with previous events in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players will be given a specific goal or task once Festivale goes into full swing. Multicolored feathers will start raining from the sky on February 15, and players will have to catch these feathers using their net and give them to Pave.
Once the event draws to a close, players will be seemingly given a chance to pose for a one-of-a-kind photo opportunity. So far, this is all the information we have on the upcoming Festivale event and the January update in general, and Nintendo has yet to reveal more details about what players can expect.
Of course, there’s a chance that the update will include more than just Festivale preparations, such as bug fixes and other quality of life adjustments. Previous New Horizons updates implemented a variety of improvements while still introducing new content, and as far as we can tell, there’s no indication that the upcoming January update will be any different.
That being said, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can look forward to even more new and exciting updates this year. At the end of the trailer for the January update, Nintendo confirms that the next free update will take place some time in March. Also, this update will apparently have some kind of connection to the Super Mario franchise.
Although, this makes sense at the same time. March 2021 marks the first-year anniversary of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Meanwhile, the 35th anniversary celebration of Super Mario, which has been ongoing since September of last year, will come to a close on March. Given this information, it appears that these two franchises will be having some kind of joint celebration.
