Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update - Everything You Need to Know

If you’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently, chances are you’re aware of the latest update that came out a couple of days ago. And unless you’ve been messing with your Switch’s system clock, chances are you still have yet to see everything from it. Here’s the Animal Crossing Direct discussing this new update, in case you missed it:

For veteran players and newcomers alike, the latest update has introduced hundreds of new things you can work towards. Since it’s such a new update, however, there’s a lot of misinformation and confusion on when players can access this new content. In this article, I’ll be dispelling that misinformation and discussing the new content in-depth - including what needs to be done to access it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t a very story-heavy game, but players will need to progress through it to unlock the new update’s features. Outside of certain furniture and clothing and the wooden ladder set-up kit, there are two milestones players will need to reach to get most of the new content:

If you’re only just starting a new game of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the updated content will only become fully available to you after around two weeks of playing. Of course, time travel is always an option, but there isn’t a need to rush - especially with just how much was really added.

These additions to the New Horizons update are a little complicated in their unlocking process, as well as how in-depth they are. You’ll want to read up on these if you’re having trouble figuring out how or what to unlock.

The Roost has a couple of extra steps in order to unlock. You’ll need to donate one item for each area of the museum, including artwork - meaning you’ll also have to donate a lot of items in order to unlock the ability to donate art in the first place. After doing all this and completing Project K, entering the museum on a new day will let you start the quest to get The Roost set up.

After finding the owner of The Roost and visiting the museum again, you’ll need to wait until the day after tomorrow in order to take your first sip of coffee. Once that time comes, you’ll have access to the possibility of chatting with hundreds of fantastic Animal Crossing characters - including numerous characters that weren’t even in New Horizons until this update. There’s also a reward for visiting The Roost daily for a while, so make time in your schedule for a virtual coffee break.

If you’ve met the requirements for The Roost, you’re most likely all set to help Harv expand his island. You’ll know for a fact once you receive a letter from him in the mail - if you haven’t gotten one yet, make sure you visited his island in the first place and talked about taking pictures with him.

Once everything is said and done, you’ll be able to fund seven different shops on Harv’s Island for 100,000 bells apiece. You can only fund one shop a day, and each shop has a different purpose. Kicks, Redd, Leif, and Saharah all provide similar services that they do as traveling merchants. Reese and Cyrus will help you customize items, Tortimer lets you access your storage from Harv’s Island, and Katrina will predict your luck for the day. Harriet will also become available to customize your hair after you fund and open up at least one shop on Harv’s Island. It’s up to you which shops you open up, though many players recommend going with Leif’s shop first to get ahold of the new vegetables as part of the update.

Once you gain access to the Happy Home Paradise DLC, unlocking everything in it is actually pretty straightforward. Other than some of the exclusive furniture, all of the features can be unlocked just by continuing to complete client requests. After 30 clients, you’ll gain the ability to renovate the homes of your fellow islanders - the last feature you need to unlock from the DLC.

This only scratches the surface of the new content added in this update. New and returning villagers were added for players to interact with; new music is available for players to listen to, and - in total - over 9,000 new items were brought into the game. There’s never been a better time to jump into New Horizons, and that goes for newcomers and veterans alike.