14 November 2025

I Haven’t Touched My Animal Crossing Island in 3 Years, And This Update Finally Forgives Me

By newsgame

The Animal Crossing fandom awoke on a random Thursday morning like sleeper agents. After 4 years of complete silence, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is receiving an update. For a community that had long accepted the game’s “final goodbye” in 2021, this announcement landed like a forgotten letter arriving years late: unexpected, nostalgic, and perhaps even a little emotional.

January 2026 will be a productive month for Animal Crossing: New Horizons players, myself included. For 3 years, I haven’t visited my island. I couldn’t bring myself to face the overgrown weeds, the abundance of flowers, or even the roach-infested corners of my house. Yet, this update introduces many features that will help me smoothly reconnect with a world that once welcomed me so softly. And truthfully? I can’t wait.

What’s Coming in Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Version 3.0 Update

animal crossing new horizons switch 2 edition

New Horizons’ 3.0 update beckons hordes of players back to their islands with an abundance of cool features. Some of these perks had been requests that have floated around internet forums for years, but now, at last, the fandom can enjoy them:

Multiple islands/Slumber Island: Players with a Nintendo Switch Online membership can finally design up to three islands on a single account. Additionally, they can design and build islands with their friends.
Fun Collaborations: Animal Crossing has teamed up with LEGO, Legend of Zelda, and Splatoon for this huge update. From furniture to new Animal Crossing villagers, players will be able to unlock this new content through specific amiibos or Bells.
Kapp’n’s Resort Hotel: Missed out on the Happy Home Paradise DLC? New Horizon’s 3.0 update’s got you covered. This new location will have players play as hotel managers and interior designers as they create unique hotel rooms for resort guests.

animal crossing new horizons update promotional image

With so much new content, it’s easy to imagine old players flocking to pour hundreds of hours back into the game. But one feature excites me the most because it will be the key to smooth sailing from the second I boot up my Nintendo Switch. Or if I’m lucky this holiday season, a new Nintendo Switch 2.

Resetti Offers a Helping Hand

Meeting Mr. Resetti is a core memory for many young players scarred by his harsh demeanor. For me? He was an absolute nightmare. But this time, Resetti isn’t here to scold. He’s here to help.

The update introduces a new Reset Service designed to make returning to an Animal Crossing ghost town far less overwhelming. Instead of punishing players for neglect, Resetti now offers the chance to gracefully reset cluttered areas, tidy up neglected landscapes, and ease the anxiety of not knowing where to begin. It’s a surprising, almost poetic shift: the character once associated with guilt now gives players permission to start fresh without shame.

Alongside Resetti’s support, home storage expands to 9,000 items, including trees, shrubs, and flowers. This addition is a miracle for anyone who logged off mid-terraforming chaos. For returning players who quietly ghosted their islands when life got too hard, this update feels like an act of forgiveness built into the game’s very mechanics.

My Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Will Be Happy to See Me Again

There are various reasons why I haven’t touched my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island in almost 3 years. And I know that for some players, that hiatus extends to 4. Although there can be an infinite number of reasons to have stepped away from the Island Representative title, here are mine. I hope some of mine resonate with you:

An Animal Crossing Game With an End Game: After achieving a perfect island rating, 480 in-game hours, and endless Happy Home Paradise abodes designed, I felt a natural wane in my desire to continue. It felt like I had done it all. Of course, the occasional yearning for the game emerged, but only to check in, get overwhelmed, and promptly log off.
The Cozy Gaming Scene Popped Off: The last decade in cozy gaming has truly popped off. From Stardew Valley to upcoming titles, there are plenty of games for us cozy gamers to try. And while Animalese will always have a special place in our hearts, the truth of the matter is that there are plenty of titles out there that beckon us with equally appealing gameplay.
An Island of Grief: Many people love Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the comfort it offered at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With isolation commonplace, they needed a reason to disconnect, while also having a platform to socialize with friends. For me, I really needed a reason to keep going. The brutal truth that looks into my heart’s eye is that my time on my island is marred by grief. This is perhaps my most personal reason.

animal crossing new horizons announces free update and upgrade for switch 2

Around the time Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched, my world caved in. I know this isn’t unique to anyone who lived through the mess of March 2020, but for me, that season of global stillness arrived alongside deeply personal loss. Within months, I lost two of the women who shaped my life: my great-grandmother, who raised me, and my favorite aunt.

My great-grandmother’s health had already begun to decline when a string of earthquakes struck Puerto Rico in early 2020. My hometown was the epicenter. The constant tremors, the instability of medical services, and fear hastened what felt inevitable but still unimaginable. My aunt, meanwhile, was the kind of woman who made it a game to find magic in the everyday. Young, hilarious, ever so beautiful, and gone within months of an aggressive cancer diagnosis.

Animal Crossing Kangaroo Baby and Parent

The grief was suffocating. I’d worked for years toward a college graduation that would never come in the way I imagined, but I would have given it up in a heartbeat if only I could keep these women with me. The pandemic sealed me inside my own sadness. I wasn’t just destroyed, I was unmoored: stripped of rhythm, of any sense of continuity between the life I’d known and the one I was forced to face—without them, abruptly.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Means More to Me Than Most Games Ever Will

Noticing how deep I’d sunk into depression, my then-boyfriend (now beloved husband of two years), handed me a copy of New Horizons as an anniversary gift. Little did he know that this act of love saved my life.

Animal Crossing New Horizons City Center

In that bright, boundless little world full of critters, I found the first real internal quiet I’d had in months. I built a home that felt like the one I lost in Puerto Rico: vintage-looking furniture, soft pastels, flowers on the walls, and KK Slider’s KK Moody blasting from every speaker because it sounds remarkably similar to Eydie Gorme’s Sabor a Mi, a song my great-grandmother played for me. Above the fireplace, I placed candles and two wreaths. One pink for my aunt, vibrant and defiant in the face of adversity. One white for my grandmother, calm, serene, and steadfast despite the limitations of her life as a disenfranchised Black woman in the rural Caribbean.

I created my island slowly. I built corners where we could rest with gardens, kitchens, and little seaside nooks. My Animal Crossing villagers would wander by, complimenting the decor or admiring the details, and I’d find myself smiling on days I thought I only knew tears. Once, a little frog named Prince thanked me for placing a rocking chair outside his house—to use “for when my grandma visits.” That single line split me open and stitched me back together all at once.

Over time, my Animal Crossing island became more than an escape. It was a place to grieve, to remember, to create beauty when the real world felt impossible to bear. And, maybe most importantly, it taught me to build again. Even after loss. In spite of it.

I’m Excited to Come Back to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and You Should Be, Too

Gathered around a campfire in Animal Crossing New Horizons

I’d built the spaces of my Animal Crossing island when I was raw and fragile, and I didn’t know how to return without reopening those wounds. But I’m seeing Animal Crossing’s January update as an invitation to embrace healing. And for many of us who played it during the pandemic, we should be embracing it together. On strictly technical terms, New Horizons‘ upcoming features give us practically no excuse. On a gushier side, it’s an opportunity to note that the world, somehow, did not fully cave in those dark, dark days. We made it. And as our modern life and concerns grow increasingly complicated without the privacy of isolation, we have our islands made of love to shelter us—even for just a few hours.

When January comes, I’ll step back onto that little island for the first time in years. I’ll likely gain the courage to start over in New Horizons. I’ll see what changes the new update brings, and what’s stayed the same. And for a moment, as the music drifts and the ocean hums, I’ll remember how it felt to build something whole in the middle of heartbreak. How it felt to find peace, pixel by pixel. After all this time, Animal Crossing isn’t just coming back. It’s welcoming me home, forgiving me for leaving, and perhaps, understanding why.