The Animal Crossing: New Horizons release date is a bit later than we'd hoped - March 20, 2020, as announced during the Nintendo E3 2019 show - but at least we get to spend the next nine months poring over gameplay footage rather than praying for even the slightest bit of information. One of the biggest new features in New Horizons was further explored in a recent Nintendo Treehouse stream at E3 2019: outdoor decoration.
"For the furniture, you can also place them outside in the field," designer Aya Kyogoku explained via translator. "And not just the furniture but also the tent itself. You're able to place them on the beach. This is something you couldn't do in New Leaf, but you're able to do that [in New Horizons]."
Thanks to Tom Nook, you start New Horizons with basically nothing. Thankfully, you'll quickly acquire modest shelter in the form of a tent you can place anywhere. Traditional houses are also seen in the game's teaser trailer, but you'll probably be spending quite a lot of time in your little tent, so you may as well spruce it up a bit. And while you're at it, why not tend to, oh I don't know, the entire island?
Decorating your home's interior in previous Animal Crossing games was engrossing enough, but New Horizons lets you place and arrange stuff straight-up everywhere. Put benches along the river. Put some lawn chairs down on the beach. Build a community center with gardens and a barbecue. Hell, you can even lay down roads. New Horizons will let you fill out your house, pretty up the world, and build a whole dang village right down to the infrastructure.
"By giving players the freedom to build something there, something they may not have been able to do in previous titles, we were able to give them the opportunity to build everything from scratch," Kyogoku added.
Here's everything we know about the upcoming Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch release.
