Nintendo Celebrates 25 Years of Animal Crossing With New Update, Nostalgic Letter, and Music Release

2 days ago Justin 6 Comments

It’s been 25 years since the first Animal Crossing game released in Japan, and Nintendo is celebrating today with a few surprises in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and beyond!

First, a lovely new piece of 25th anniversary artwork thanking players for 25 years has been shared featuring classic characters like Tortimer, K.K. Slider, and Rover — you can see it in this article’s header above.

Animal Crossing GameCube on Nintendo Music

Next, 158 songs from the soundtrack for Animal Crossing on GameCube have been made available to listen on the official Nintendo Music smartphone app! Plus, this era of Animal Crossing had a few different versions released between Japan and overseas, and Nintendo has combined them into one for today’s release.

So you’ll actually find a few ‘exclusive’ tracks from Doubutsu no Mori e+ that were never available in North America including an altered Opening Theme, Late-Night Hours at Tom Nook’s Store, Reset Surveillance Center, and a couple events. It’s worth a listen if you’re a fan of Animal Crossing history!

New Leaf Statue Item in ACNH Update

Perhaps more notably though, a new minor Version 3.0.2 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available that brings a brand new furniture item celebrating the 25th anniversary of the series. That’s quite a surprise as we certainly weren’t expecting any new content to ever come after Version 3.0 released in January.

Inside your mailbox after updating, you can find the new Leaf Statue item in a letter from Nintendo, the very same as seen in the 25th anniversary artwork. The Leaf Statue features a soft green glow especially visible at night. This is reminiscent of the free update mailbox gifts that we used to see come with most major updates released back in 2020 and 2021, and perhaps explains why the Version 3.0 update was missing one.

Version 3.0.2 Update Patch Notes

In addition to the Leaf Statue item, a variety of bug fixes and adjustments were made in the Version 3.0.2 Update as well:

General Updates

• A commemorative item for the 25th anniversary of the Animal Crossing series has been added. Please check the in-game mailbox to receive it.
• Fixed an issue in hotel guest rooms where furniture placement or guest behavior could prevent exiting the room.
• Fixed an issue where crafting multiple items at once using a DIY recipe requiring six types of materials could sometimes be completed even without sufficient materials.
• Fixed an issue where a dung beetle appearing on a snowball could remain on-screen after the snowball disappeared.
• Fixed an issue where items could pop out of a rock before the shovel made contact when hitting it.
• This issue was addressed in Ver. 3.0.1, but could still occur under certain conditions, so it has been fixed again.
• Fixed an issue where bringing custom designs created by the player to a Slumber Island could prevent them from being displayed at Able Sisters or uploaded to the Custom Design Portal.
• Fixed an issue where glowing spots on the island would not appear lit when viewing the island from the plane while returning from another island.
• Fixed an issue where villagers who had promised to visit the player’s home could sometimes appear in unnatural locations inside the house.
• Other adjustments and corrections were made to improve the game play experience.

Changes to DLC

• Fixed an issue where animals requesting vacation homes would stop appearing on the beach even when some animals still do not have vacation homes.

Nostalgic Retro Stationery Letter

And another extra touch, the Leaf Statue comes on a pretty nostalgic N64 style stationery featuring art and graphics from the original game with a heartfelt message from Nintendo:

While getting a new item is always nice, I have to say the decorated retro stationery was quite a pleasant surprise — one I didn’t see coming but very much appreciate from Nintendo honoring the series’ legacy. Sometimes, it can feel as if the company has forgotten that era of Animal Crossing with the newer games, so it’s a small welcome touch to show they still remember!

Nintendo 64 Box Art Custom Design

Finally, Nintendo has updated the official Ninten dream island with a new custom design recreating the Japanese box art of Animal Crossing on Nintendo 64 that you can bring into your game with the code below.

That covers everything Nintendo shared and released to celebrate Animal Crossing’s 25th anniversary this week! It’s more than we were expecting, frankly. Now, let’s just get Animal Crossing on the GameCube NSO next!

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons News Update