Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch 2 couple impressions - Good update but what about couch co-op?

As I'm sure was the case for a lot of couples who played games together during the Covid pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch was one of the games of that time.

With so many people having so much spare time on their hands, many turned to gaming to pass the time and enjoy new experiences with Animal Crossing being one of the most popular.

My girlfriend and I included.

We sunk hours and hours into building our perfect island and continued to fish, discover fossils, catch bugs and more for years after the game's initial release in March 2020.

Admittedly, after sinking hundreds and hundreds of hours into it, we fell off with it as we felt we had done pretty much everything we wanted to get out of the game - until Version 3.0 and the Switch 2 Edition update arrived and we couldn't wait to dive back in.

One gripe that my girlfriend and I had throughout playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons together was the leader and follower system while playing couch co-op, where one player is the camera controlling leader who can access everything as normal whereas followers can use tools but can't access pockets or the Nook Phone with all items they collect going to a recycle bin.

This became a bit of a chore having to frequently swap leaders, go to the recycle bin to claim items, manage inventory all in one go and repeat the cycle.

And as welcome as Version 3.0 and the Switch 2 Edition update is, unfortunately that gripe remains with new features making couch co-op feel all but forgotten about.

Players have a new hotel to work on / Nintendo

Starting with a positive, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has always been a good looking game with its vibrant colour palette and idyllic island setting and the new update elevates that even further.

It's not the biggest improvement but as it started off from such a strong baseline already, any improvement is good. The game still runs at 30fps (frames per second) in both docked and handheld though.

We've been toying with the idea of starting a new island from scratch for a while and the Slumber Islands felt like the perfect opportunity for us to do just that - except we can't.

They don't work with local multiplayer. Only for players with an active Nintendo Switch Online membership. It's an online-only feature.

What a kick in the teeth that is...

Plus, the only building you can include is your house and you can't change the seasons. It's pretty much a 'creative mode' to see what you can put together and feels more like a testing ground rather than creating anything substantial.

From a single-player perspective, it would have been nice for this to be much less restrictive to feel like you're free to start what feels like a new, lived in island without having to delete all of the progress of your old one.

But not being able to access this at all while playing couch co-op is just downright disappointing.

The new hotel on the pier gives something new to work towards, upgrading it and getting it exactly how you want.

There's mouse support but this isn't quite as useful or intuitive as it could be, it feels like a bit of an afterthought in how it's incorporated as some menus still have to be brought up by pressing controller buttons.

And then our previous gripe with couch co-op in Animal Crossing: New Horizons remains too...

The Switch 2 upgrade and free update for all players feels like a missed opportunity / Nintendo

This feels like such a missed opportunity.

As previously mentioned, having to rotate between being the leader and follower between us so frequently gets in the way of fully enjoying the game. The follower showing every item picked up to the camera too before it being teleported to the recycling bin quickly gets old.

Not being able to access pockets or the Nook phone as a follower grows tiresome too. You also have to cycle through all of the tools you've got equipped before you can get to what you want to use. You better make sure you don't cycle by it by accident or else you're got to go all the way around again...

With it being Winter, perhaps the most heart-wrenching moment we've experienced in the update so far was trying to build a snowman.

There were two snowballs right outside my girlfriend's house in the game and we wanted to each roll one so they would get large enough to stack and build a snowman together.

But as before, I was the follower and I was unable to roll the snowball around. I could move it about a millimetre if I ran into it but that was it.

It was left for my girlfriend to build the snowman on her own as I watched on. Neither of us were really happy at this outcome and felt a bit bummed we still couldn't do this simple task together.

It feels as though in couch co-op, you're really restricted by having to get all your things from the recycling bin and switch leaders again and again and again... Yes inventory management is a key part of the game but this feels like such a chore with how frequently you have to do it if you're playing couch co-op in longer sessions.

And then having restrictions on what you're able to do as a follower is just a bit disheartening...

Playing in single-player, or even with friends online, this update is good. It adds more meaningful content to the game, the Slumber Islands allow you to test out different concepts of how you want your island to be and if you're playing online, 12 people can now visit an island at once instead of eight.

We've still got a lot to get stuck back into but at the moment, the same couch co-op issues remaining feels like such a missed opportunity.

It's a good update but it could have gone so, so much further.

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