One of the more surprising inclusions to the newest title in the Animal Crossing franchise is the terraforming tool. Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows players to transform nearly every aspect of their island to fit their image of a perfect town. Fans everywhere have been baffled by the sheer potential this offers, and one player has taken this freedom to new creative heights.
Players of the past incarnations of the series may have noticed that there is an increasing amount of player autonomy as you progress through the titles. City Folk and Wild World have you inviting a town full of cute animal neighbors, New Leaf allows you to run the town as mayor, and finally, New Horizons lets you literally change the landscape of your new island home.
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One such player has definitely figured this out and shows off his Legend of Zelda inspired “dungeon” in a video posted to Twitter. The video shows the player character, dressed fittingly as Link, of course, traversing a platforming puzzle as they progress through the dungeon.
The landscape is filled with appropriate items for a Zelda dungeon, including turtle “enemies” to face, mysterious wells to gaze into, and of course pots to smash. The platforming culminates into a final “boss”, facing down a Godzilla statue with a slingshot.
For keen eyes, fans of the Legend of Zelda franchise, the final area, in particular, might be reminiscent of battling the Imprisoned at the Sealed Grounds in Skyward Sword. The spiral three-tiered landscape created by the terraforming tool seems to call to mind the recurring showdown with that pesky foe.
While the terraforming tool can be daunting to some, others such as John Pirruccello are only inspired to create. The video posted on April 17th has already garnered over 15.9K views and 1.1K likes at the time of writing. For those interesting in following his further Animal Crossing exploits, he also has a Youtube account linked in his Twitter bio.
The best news is, this is just one possible use of these powerful new tools. The terraforming tools are somewhat late game in New Horizons. To attain them, one must first achieve at least a 3-star rating on their island which is no small feat. As you can see, however, it is well worth it.
Thanks to Nintendo for allowing players this level of freedom within Animal Crossing. It seems to be a natural progression for the series and opens a world of possibilities for creative players. We as a community can certainly look forward to many more surprising and delightful creations as the game is out longer.
