How the Nintendo Switch Pro could improve Animal Crossing: New Horizons


Animal Crossing: New Horizons is perhaps the most positive game launch of the year, maybe even of the decade, and it couldn't have come at a better time. As good as the game is, there are a couple of little technical issues that pop-up occasionally that might make you wonder about how things can be better.

Well, if the Nintendo Switch Pro ever comes out, there's a large chance of it impacting how games play thanks to updated technology. Just how could a Nintendo Switch Pro improve something like Animal Crossing? We're glad you asked.

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Animal Crossing is a game that allows us to live out our most chilled fantasies. You get to move to an uninhabited island, cause no harm to anyone, and live your life pottering around and slowly building up a community. The world changes in real-time, with trees growing, weather changing, and day and night always ticking along. It's the kind of utopian dream that is at its best when you need a bit of escapism, so it's damn near perfect at the moment.

For the most part, there are no issues to be found in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but it's not actually perfect. There are a few things, seemingly mostly to do with connectivity, that can cause some delays and frustration with the experience.

Take the random stuttering of frozen animations as someone connects or disconnects to your island. How about the message you get when someone is arriving or leaving, and the fact that they can't do so if anyone on your island is in a menu?

These kinds of issues in Animal Crossing could be solved with a simple boost in power. If the console can process more things at once, then you could stay in your menu changing your T-shirt design while another friend arrives onto your island with no issue. You could keep crafting a new bed while someone else leaves, and maybe we could all play for more than five minutes without having to watch the slow loading screen that happens whenever someone is heading over to the island.

Read more: How to make a perfect town in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

These aren't all issues specifically to do with Nintendo's hardware, but a boost in power and processing speed would definitely help iron some of them out. As it stands, the Switch lacks the power needed to allow for this kind of activity to occur across multiple players, and their save states, but every other console can do things like this, so there really should be no excuse when the Nintendo Switch Pro comes around.

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