While Nintendo hasn't set a specific date for the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fall update, we now know that it should be coming quite soon. Nintendo put out a feature on free updates for various Switch games, and they snuck in this tidbit on New Horizons.

It’s time to celebrate the fall season in the Animal Crossing™: New Horizons game—which means there’s another free update around the corner. Be prepared for seasonal in-game events and activities, plus some spook-tacular tricks and treats!
Sounds like we won't have to wait long into Fall to get this update. Whenever Nintendo shares new details, including release date, we'll make sure to bring you that info.

The Nintendo UK Online store is offering some fun goodies for Animal Crossing fans right now. For those interested, there's a whole lineup of Animal Crossing cushions available. Each cushion is priced at £24.99, and you can check out the full lineup here.

Nintendo UK is also teasing a Pastel Collection of Animal Crossing merch. Nintendo hasn't revealed what will be in this collection, but they did share this blurb.

Register your interest to be the first to discover our Animal Crossing: New Horizons Pastel Collection! This limited edition merchandise range is available exclusively from the Nintendo Official UK Store and only for a short time.

If you want to sign up for notifications on what these items will be, you can submit your email address here.

Nintendo has put together a new TV commercial for Animal Crossing: New Horizons in France. This spot features Denis Brogniart, who is a sports journalist and TV host. Why did Nintendo want Brogniart in the commercial? Your guess is as good as mine, but I guess he's a recognizable face in France!

WHAT: Infusing online gaming with music to bring fans together, the multi-faceted musician MOZIAH has partnered with gaming gear leader HyperX for his upcoming “Jerrymorganpark” music video shot in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing. This mashup marks an incredible crossover moment between gaming, music and pop culture.

Kicking off the collaboration, MOZIAH and HyperX are hosting a massive Twitch party and stream session featuring Q&As with MOZIAH, famed gamer Jacki Jing, and video directors Camrus Johnson and Charis Storms via HyperX’s Twitch channel on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. EST.

WHO: Emerging pop artist and storyteller MOZIAH grew up playing Nintendo Wii and their old school emulators and has always used inspiration from video games in his music, driving his collaboration with HyperX.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., is a brand leader in gaming and esports. From partnerships with popular musicians, athletes and esports pros to hosting virtual events and live streams, HyperX strives to connect communities via gaming platforms where stars and fans can interact in intimate, fun environments.

WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. EST

WHERE: HyperX’s Twitch channel: www.twitch.tv/hyperx

All versions of the Switch are hard to find, but the Animal Crossing: New Horizons edition might be the most elusive. The last time Australia saw a restock, it disappeared in the same day. Thankfully our friends down under will have another chance soon.

Nintendo has announced that the Animal Crossing: New Horizons edition Switch is going to hit select retailers on Oct. 9th, 2020. No word on how many units there are, so hopefully those who want one are ready to snag one online or in person.

Liberal Democratic Party politician Shigeru Ishiba was looking to spread word of his campaign to the younger crowd, which is why he and his team took to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The campaign created a video that featured Mr. Ishiba in game, along with a pattern that fans could use. That video was shared on social media, and followers quickly commented on the matter, wondering if Nintendo was okay with that kind of content.

Mr. Ishiba's campaign spoke to Nintendo to see if what they were doing was allowed, and Nintendo did confirm that it was against the game's terms of service. Ishiba had the campaign removed, and all designs were yanked from the game.

Over the weekend, Nintendo was part of Japan’s Computer Entertainment Developers Conference, where a number of their devs talked about the creation of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In particular, series head Hisashi Nogami, New Horizons director Aya Kyogoku, and art director Kouji Takahashi spoke about what they see happening for Animal Crossing in the future. Check out a summary of what they had to say below.

- the key to the series' popularity is making each installment feel different while remaining true to the series' core
- over the years, the dev team recognized Animal Crossing “cannot be sustained without change”
- the team finds it important to continue to challenge and change with the times
- the series’ policy is to evolve its core mission of communication between players according to the times
- with New Horizons, the key innovations were goals and achievements that changed with each phase of gameplay
- another key innovation was the ability for players to set their own goals via Nook Miles
- most of Animal Crossing players are in their 20s and 30s and that gender is split almost equally
- New Horizon’s lower youth demographic may be due to the game not yet been available during the holiday season
- New Horizon's art was balanced between symbolic and realistic
- the team decided to allocate detail to objects and scenery based on their role in the game
- bugs and fish were made more realistic so that players would enjoy inspecting them
- trees and plants were given a more symbolic look
- the intention with the art style was to create an “imaginary gap” where players could place their own interpretation
- if the picture is too busy, the player becomes passive
- if the amount of information is too small, the burden of filling the imaginary gap increases and the viewer becomes tired

The final advertising numbers for August 2020 are in, and we now know that Nintendo took third place overall. Check out their stats below.

- estimated spend of $4.9 million on 20 commercials that aired over 1,900 times
- 355.8 million TV ad impressions
- top spot by spend (estimated at $677,351) was “She’s My Favorite: Animal Crossing”
- programs with the biggest outlay included SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, and The Amazing World of Gumball
- top networks included Nick, Cartoon Network, and Bravo

The developer-oriented CEDEC 2020 conference recently took place, and a number of Nintendo devs were on-hand to talk about their work on Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You can see slides from Nintendo's presentation right here, and the tidbits they shared below.

- Animal Crossing: New Horizons has roughly 400 unique villagers
- the goal was for each player to have their own unique set of villagers to show off to others
- to make the villagers beloved by players, the team needed to design characters players would “want to interact with”
- Nintendo also wanted to make villagers that players enjoy watching to see what they're doing
- designs start with the silhouette, as each villager has a distinctive silhouette by species
- silhouettes are very simple by design, as getting to specific limits the sort of animal variety the developers can use
- the challenge was making characters unique, while also not standing out too much overall
- Nintendo said this approach allows for freedom, as a cat can look like a cat from afar, but it can have a unique design up close
- when deciding each of the villagers’ personalities, the developers looked towards real-life
- the team decided how each of the five personalities are perceived in terms of appearance
- this can create a sense of connection towards the villagers, as players can imagine them being similar to someone they know
- all 35 villager species are designed to draw out the distinctive traits of their species
- the feelings are expressed the same no matter the species in order to help further the connection between with players
- villagers have two general categories of actions, ones that they enact themselves and ones that are derived from their situation
- this includes eating, doing yoga, sweeping the floor, fishing, and more
- villagers with an interest in music will be seen more frequently singing
- villagers who like to read will be seen reading more
- Nintendo adjusts the frequency of actions and patterns to make the villagers seem as if they have their own will
- villagers will also change their clothes to fit what they are doing, further giving this impression
- actions where the villagers find something and do something depend on what the villagers happen to see at the time
- the change from “doing their own thing” to “doing something with what they found” happens automatically
- the developers made it so that the villagers will look at the object and ponder about it before switching to interacting
- as players interact more and more with the villagers and see how they act, each player will get to make their own memories

Even though most of the world seems to already know about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo continues the advertising campaign. A new commercial for the title has been released in Korea, and you can check that spot out above.