Animal Crossing: New Leaf to get Major Update this Fall

Welcome back to town, Mayor!

After the company’s recent strive to push its charmingly addictive life sim series Animal Crossing toward the spotlight, Nintendo has announced today that it will be rolling out a major update for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Originally released all the way back in 2013 (2012 in Japan) for the Nintendo 3DS, New Leaf has still successfully managed to hold its own in terms of popularity against even today’s 3DS games despite its age.

The upcoming update centers around amiibo functionality, and will allow players to scan a variety of amiibo they own in order to unlock a plethora of new content. While the finer details of the update have yet to be released, it has been confirmed thus far that scanning any of the Animal Crossing amiibo Cards will allow the specific villager scanned to move into the player’s town. Additionally, the announcement seems to indicate functionality between New Leaf and every Animal Crossing amiibo released thus far. Also showcased was a variety of content based on Nintendo’s own Splatoon series, including outfits, furniture, and even two new potential villagers based on Splatoon‘s very own Callie and Marie.

The pictures released with Nintendo’s announcement also showcased an older Animal Crossing character named Wisp. Though mysteriously absent from New Leaf originally, the upcoming update appears to add Wisp back into the game. It also appears as though players will need to interact with their new ghost pal in order to scan amiibo or amiibo Cards.

Although no specific date has been set in place as to when the update will roll out, Nintendo has mentioned that we will be seeing it sometime this fall. For those who may not remember, Nintendo announced a smartphone app based on the Animal Crossing series back in April, which was also dated to release sometime during the fall (along with an app based on Nintendo’s Fire Emblem series as well). Perhaps the upcoming app somehow works together with New Leaf’s update? Stay tuned for more Animal Crossing goodness as its released!

Kenny McKee

Starting out with nothing more than a Game Boy and a copy of Donkey Kong Land, Kenny has happily been gaming for almost his entire life. Easily-excitable and a bit on the chatty side, Kenny has always been eager to share gaming-related thoughts, opinions, and news with others and has been doing so on Hey Poor Player since 2014 and has previously worked with both PKMNcast and SCATcast. Although his taste in gaming spreads across a wide number of companies and consoles, Kenny holds a particular fondness for Nintendo handheld consoles. He is also very proud of his amiibo collection. You can also find him on Twitter @SuperBayleef talking about video games and general nonsense. Some of his favorite games include Tetris Attack, Pokémon Black Version 2, The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, Yo-kai Watch, Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Mega Man X, and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (among many others).