The Animal Crossing: New Horizons demo at the 2020 PAX East conference was simple, sweet, and short, but with this life building sim, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
At PAX East, attendees were given the rare opportunity to play a Animal Crossing: New Horizons demo for the Nintendo Switch. It was tough to click fast enough to get one of the coveted “warp pipe” passes to secure a guaranteed spot in line, but luckily, the lines opened up to those without warp pipe passes at the end of the conference’s last day.
Full of color and with about 25 Switch console setups, Nintendo’s PAX booth kept things moving along at a decent pace. Nintendo hype persons kept the crowds entertained while waiting in line by inviting players on stage to play Luigi’s Mansion 3 minigames. The New Horizons trailers played on loop, keeping those in the line in the Crossing mood. “Did you see that? You can pick up trees with your shovel this time,” I overheard behind me.
The Switch setups allowed for four controllers at a time, with a Nintendo rep guiding the three players through a town. In the four-player mode, we were all set to follow a leader in the group, which could be changed within the X button’s menu on the first player’s controls.
With the employee taking the first turn as the leader (all employees made their own Villagers in their likenesses), the three players were given a quick rundown of what the game was about. We were told that most of the town’s shops, such as Mabel’s and Tom Nook’s stores, would not be available until a bit later on in a given playthrough. When it was my turn to be the group leader, I decided to spend my time wisely by acquiring the standing anatomical model of the human body from Tom Nook’s store, and promptly placing it on the beach (you can do that now) so that he could get some sun.
The group leader had the ability to control all of the menuing options, and the rest of us were left to dig holes, fish, catch butterflies, and shake trees. There were some cute emotes, such as surprised or elated, that were accessible in the demo; they will also be unlocked later on in a playthrough.
I was able to use the new ladder item to traverse up a cliff, and for what it’s worth, it was handy to climb up the wall without having to walk around it. If there were hotkeys mapped to certain tools, I wasn’t able to find them, as I had to arduously cycle through the tools using the d-pad until I landed on the appropriate one. It’s progress, but items like the pole vault and the terraforming pickax (both inaccessible during the demo) will be used frequently, making accessing them quickly rather important.
If a player falls behind the leader, they will eventually teleport from offscreen back into the center of the action. This worked seamlessly, and is a great means of keeping everyone in one spot. After all, we’re all playing on the same console this time around. Long gone are the days of being able to individually wander around on a handheld console, and this teleporting solution is an effective one.
As I was leaving the demo booth, I recognized the great efforts that the Nintendo employees were putting into ensuring their players were holding clean controllers. In between demo sets, the Switch Pro controllers were wiped down thoroughly, likely in an effort to prevent the potential spread of the Coronavirus. We were handed small reusable Tom Nook nylon bags, and then ushered past the photoshoot area of Nintendo’s booth.
If you were really eager to get a photo op with Isabelle or Tom Nook, you could, but it seemed as though a sign was always being held reading “line closed.” As it took a bit of maneuvering to get into the demo line, I can only imagine the luck it must have taken to get into the non-reserved photo op line.
A Nintendo hype man on stage told the crowd that he would soon be back to give away some free Nintendo goodies. The general sentiment on the final hours of the final day of PAX East was: “here, take this, we don’t want to pack it up.” While the cute leaf icon shirts worn by the employees weren’t for sale, there was a good assortment of Nintendo branded merchandise for sale at a surprisingly small booth.
Related: Animal Crossing merchandise worth spending all of your bells on
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons demo proves that the game will offer similar features as the previous titles in the series. It felt the same, and with the help of tools like a ladder, pickax and pole vault, it will be a little more convenient. Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on March 20, 2020.
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