Animal Crossing: New Horizons Gets First Update In 2 Years For Switch 2 Compatibility

1 month ago Justin 2 Comments

A new update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, titled Version 2.0.7, was released by Nintendo for download last night on May 27th, 2025.

This version notably marks the first update that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has seen released since all the way back in November 2022! Some might hope that Nintendo has walked back their previous announcements about no further major content updates to the game, but this is in fact another very simple and basic maintenance update.

Specifically, this update works to address compatibility when playing multiplayer online or offline between a Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 system. If that sounds oddly vague, it’s because we simply don’t know more.

Here’s the official full patch notes for Version 2.0.7 of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in English from Nintendo of America in their own words:

Ver. 2.0.7 (Released May 27, 2025)

General

• Improved the compatibility for multiplayer sessions between Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch.

But that vagueness won’t stop us from some healthy speculation! Since Nintendo specifically noted compatibility between an older original Nintendo Switch system and a newer Nintendo Switch system, and not simply general compatibility for Nintendo Switch 2, it stands to reason that the change is tied to a difference between the two systems when interacting together.

One particularly infamous element of playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons in online multiplayer with other players is unfortunately the particularly long loading times when visiting another player’s island, or having them visit yours. Nintendo attempts to mask these long loading times in part with the elaborate Dodo Airlines arrival and departure screen animation, but it simply drags on no matter what.

Again, this is pure speculation, but perhaps a significantly improved loading time found on the new Nintendo Switch 2 was found to cause issues when connecting in multiplayer with another player who still has very slow loading times on their original Nintendo Switch.

An issue could easily come up if Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ multiplayer connection process was developed in mind expecting that it would be impossible for the original Nintendo Switch system to ever load another player’s island in multiplayer at such a speed. This new update released now would therefore address that concern.

And in regard to loading times, we learned straight from Nintendo’s Ask The Developer interview a while back that it is indeed possible for Nintendo Switch 1 games to experience loading time improvements through standard backwards compatibility, even without an update released:

Q: You mentioned that new technology is used to achieve compatibility, but are there situations where playing Switch games on Switch 2 will enhance the gameplay experience?

A: When we tried running Switch games on Switch 2, there were some where loading times became faster, or game performance became more stable, so we realized that the overall gameplay experience could improve.

Despite Animal Crossing: New Horizons not receiving a specific Nintendo Switch 2 update that could increase the game’s rendering resolution or frame rate cap, we’ll definitely be testing the game when the Nintendo Switch 2 launches to see if either loading times or crowded island performance have been improved. Stay tuned!

As always, if we happen to learn or discover any more specific information about the 2.0.7 update, this article will absolutely be updated with the latest details!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons News Update