The biggest update in ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ is here (yes, in the Southern Hemisphere!) and it seems it couldn’t have come at a better time. Coincidentally, the new update that unlocks the oceans around your island has landed just as parts of Melbourne dives back into stage 3 lockdowns. And we’ve noticed that as the lockdown sets in and the AC map opens up, interest in the game has spiked again.
It’s literally a huge coincidence the huge update dropped this week…unless there’s some fucking bonkers conspiracy involving Tom Nook and the pandemic that I’m not aware of. Considering how huge my house debt is to that enabling little racoon, that might have some legs to it.
The ‘Swim 1’ update dropped in Australia on Friday afternoon, and if you take a casual peek at the Google trends from this week, there’s a massive jump in people looking up the update.
This is Australia as a whole:
And this is Victoria specifically:
So it’s pretty safe to say that Melburnians are returning back to their little islands now that large parts of the city’s suburbia is being shut down.
I know my little island has been stagnant and slowly getting overgrown with weeds for the last few weeks while I’ve been doing real-life stuff as the restrictions eased.
But now that I know that we’re seemingly racking up positive cases again and I can do a big swim in the waters around my island, you can bet your sweet ass I’m checking in on Isabelle, Timmy, Tommy, and that one neighbour I hate with every ounce of my being (ugh, go away Cranston).
Even though it’s winter for us Southern Hemisphere players, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for Animal Crossing characters with this update. Maybe they like a bit of cold water recovery in June, or they knew we’d kick up a stink if we couldn’t immediately catch sea creatures like everyone else.
Everyone in the Southern hemisphere downloading the update:#AnimalCrossing #ACNH #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/PkKVa1HhA2
— Teaforce 🐙 Steph (@Teaforce_Steph) July 3, 2020
How good is this summer update? Us southern hemisphere players are ready to kill our characters via hypothermia. #ACNH pic.twitter.com/nujU1UGfCO
— Alexander Grant (@AlexGrantOz) July 3, 2020
So there’s your extended lockdown sorted, Melbourne mates. You needed a little win this week, and the ‘Animal Crossing’ update is it. Give me a yell if you want my Switch code so I can come visit your island and sell all my god damned cherries.
