After surprise maintenance, Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans hope for more updates at today's Direct

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It's unlikely, but we're keeping our fingers crossed anyway

Isabelle looking confused in Animal Crossing
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans have got their hopes up for today's Nintendo Direct following some surprise maintenance on the game earlier today. 

As revealed by NinStatusBot on Twitter (a bot that shares updates on Nintendo's servers), Animal Crossing: New Horizons received maintenance on "certain network services" just before 1AM UTC until 2AM UTC today. Although this is probably just a routine procedure for the game and Nintendo, the fact it's happened on the same day as a Nintendo Direct has got fans excited that some kind of announcement could happen later today. 

In case you missed it, Nintendo is hosting a Nintendo Direct today (February 8) at 2PM PST / 5PM EST / 10PM GMT. Although it hasn't revealed exactly what games will be featured during the showcase, Nintendo has promised 40-minutes worth of information "mostly focused on Nintendo Switch games launching in the first half of 2023." You can find out exactly how to watch the February Nintendo Direct with our handy guide. 

As much as we all want more reasons to revisit our islands, it's important to remember that Nintendo did say in 2021 that its massive 2.0 update was its "last free major content update." To be fair, it did introduce a number of fan-requested features such as finally bringing back Brewster and The Roost, Kapp'n and his boat rides, and a number of other exciting new additions.

In terms of what Nintendo said, you can pick this apart in many ways. It either means we're not getting any more "major" updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons so we could still be treated to the odd small update here and there, it could also mean we're not getting any more "free" content, so the next batch of DLC will be paid for, or it could just mean we're not getting anything new for the game ever again - but let's just pretend that's not an option.

It's not just Animal Crossing fans who have got their hopes firmly up for tonight's Nintendo Direct. As always, fans of Hollow Knight: Silksong are desperately hoping that the game gets a mention during today's showcase, despite there being absolutely no evidence to back it up. Zelda fans have also got themselves hyped up for more The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom news, which is pretty much a given at this point considering the game is set to release in just a few months' time on May 12. 

While we wait for the showcase, find out what our Nintendo Direct predictions are.

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.