If you tried to hop onto Animal Crossing: New Horizons right when it became available at midnight, you likely realized that midnight releases of a game like Animal Crossing don’t. . . really work.
Make no mistake, the game is still fantastic, and playing at release is great if only for the sentiment of it. The only issue is that Animal Crossing is a series of games that take the time in the real world into consideration. The villagers within the game act as you would expect someone to act at whatever time of day – including being asleep at midnight.
There was still plenty to keep busy with, so it wasn’t a huge hiccup if you didn’t mind playing at night. The seemingly-endless weeds were a bit tough to see at times and the shapes of fish can be harder to differentiate when everything is dark, but all in all, it still worked great.
Unfortunately, those that may have been excited to hop into online play and visit their friends were sorely disappointed. Online functionalities were still offline at the moment of launch.
Players that wanted to visit online needed to head back to their airport and talk to Orville, the dodo bird manning the counter. Sadly, he would react to the player with surprise and say that he thought that he had locked the door, telling the player to come back later. Anyone who wanted to fly off to another island was quite literally grounded.
But the good news is, the online functionalities are up and running! If you want to visit another player, you’ll need to have them on your friends list or have the necessary code to find their island. If you want others to visit you, just tell Orville to open the gate and you can head back out into your budding island paradise.
There’s more to do with the online functionalities than play online, as strange as that may sound. If you have enough Nook Miles, you can turn them in for a ticket that’ll take you to another island. You won’t find other players here, but you’re likely to find a villager that you can ask to move to your island, if you like them enough!
You’ll also find these little islands vital to getting enough materials to construct the buildings around the town, like the shop the Nooks will ask you to contribute to. Since you can keep anything you find on one of these islands, flying to them and gathering iron and wood will give you a big jump on gathering the needed materials. You also might find exotic flora and fauna that can be sold or planted back at your own island for a much higher price than your native nature!
So get out there and do some island hopping!
