After 23 years, Animal Crossing: New Horizons brings back the feature old-school Nintendo nerds like me have missed since the GameCube – retro games

Once upon a time, Animal Crossing wasn't just a cute life sim – it was also a pretty sick compilation of retro NES games. At least, that was how I treated it when the first game localized in English made its global debut on GameCube. Nintendo eventually excised the retro games from the series, much to the disappointment of old-school nerds like me, but those old-school titles are finally returning in the upcoming free update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Once the update lands on January 15, you'll be able to collect an array of retro Nintendo consoles in New Horizons. In the announcement trailer, we see an NES, Famicom, Famicom Disk System, Game Boy, Super NES, and Super Famicom sitting on various shelves. It's unclear whether there will be multiple games to play, but it sounds like each system will have just a single game available.

If you're wondering why Nintendo would give away retro games for free when they're also part of the Switch Online subscription price, there is a catch: you will need "an active Nintendo Switch Online membership" to play these titles. You'll still be able to collect the consoles regardless, but you'll need the subscription to be able to actually play the games.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition & Free Update – Announcement Trailer - YouTube

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The fact that you'll also have access to these titles through the usual Switch Online apps maybe softens the impact of this returning Animal Crossing feature, but for me, the novelty of once again being able to play old games through Animal Crossing is a powerful draw. Nintendo's also adding an array of its real-life, pre-video game oddities to collect, including stuff like the Ultra Hand, Ultra Machine, and Love Tester – items you might've seen make cameos deep inside other Nintendo titles.

Looking at the brief gameplay clips in the trailer and squinting at the cartridge art just barely visible in the consoles, it looks like the lineup will be as follows:

• Famicom – Clu Clu Land
• NES – Ice Climber
• Game Boy – Dr. Mario
• Super Famicom – Panel De Pon
• Super NES – F-Zero

The only mystery is what the Famicom Disk System will hold, since there's no gameplay footage of that title, and the disk is hidden within the console itself. Personally, I'm hopeful for Nintendo's Japan-only Zelda-like The Mysterious Murasame Castle. With the rest of the selection made up of simple, arcade-style games, it'd be nice to have at least a little more meat in the selection.

Those pixels may be chunky, but the best NES games still hold up today.