Animal Crossing Sandbox Islands Could Fix New Horizons’ Multiplayer

The Animal Crossing series has featured multiplayer and co-op in some form for many installments, but it has always existed in a limited capacity. For obvious reasons, Nintendo didn’t want visitors to be able to manipulate and decorate the island or town they’re visiting. There’s simply too much risk for abuse and heartbreak against player’s creations if multiplayer was left without some form of moderation. Unfortunately, this moderation has become outdated and worked to limit the appeal of multiplayer in Animal Crossing‘s latest game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has kept to the series’ tradition of restricting visiting players’ interactions on each island. While visitors can shake trees, pick up dropped items, and use some of their tools, interacting with decorations is out of the question. This policy is a comforting protection to players opening their island to strangers, but for players more familiar with one another it can be a real bummer. By utilizing new sandbox islands for players to meet and work on together, Animal Crossing can expand to a more collaborative form of multiplayer game.

With so many items, themes, recipes, and tools, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has enabled players to craft their picture-perfect island in-game. Unfortunately, there’s no way to access these items without utilizing precious time, space, and resources by crafting them first. Sandbox modes have been used throughout various crafting games in the past, and have seen tremendous success in utilizing player creativity and boosting interest in the game. From games like Minecraft to Garry’s Mod, sandbox modes have been shown to expand on the success the game has garnered already. Given Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ popularity, it stands to reason that it could greatly benefit from a sandbox mode that would save both its single-player and multiplayer functions.

ACNH Sandbox Islands Could Make Decorating Collaborative

By enabling sandbox islands, players could have the opportunity to collaborate on different designs and decorations together, and having access to limitless resources could only expand the amount of time players spend together. A sandbox mode in Animal Crossing would also allow players to explore different looks and themes on an island without committing the time, effort, and resources on their own save file. Having a place to preview different designs and work with others to produce new and exciting Animal Crossing builds would exponentially increase the usefulness of multiplayer.

Currently, the only draw to partaking in ACNH multiplayer is catching bugs or fish, interacting with traveling NPCs, taking advantage of turnip prices, visiting for shooting stars, or seeing what new designs players have implemented on their islands. Seeing as Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for quite a while, many players have already found their island’s desired look. Adding different functions to ACNH could help shake this up, but for now there simply aren’t enough reasons to spend time with other players collaboratively.

Expanding the Animal Crossing multiplayer function into neutral sandbox islands that allow players to decorate together on a blank island would not only increase the number of players utilizing the multiplayer function, but it would add a new charm to the game. Animal Crossing has not allowed players to travel to a blank location that doesn’t belong to anyone in any game before, so enabling a sandbox mode in Animal Crossing: New Horizons would add another first for the series.

About The Author

Natalie Lindner
(506 Articles Published)

Natalie Lindner is a Game Features Writer for Screen Rant, creating content on the past, present, and future of games in the industry. Prior to this, she worked out of a writing consultancy in Rhode Island from 2018 to 2021, where she helped college students improve their writing abilities. Natalie has contributed her video game writing to several smaller websites and projects since 2018 and is eager to continue that journey with Screen Rant.

See also  Logan: What Happened to the Mutants?

Working out of New Hampshire, Natalie spends the time she isn’t writing about games outside; hiking or biking. On those rainy days, she can be found striving for action on the latest FPS or perusing the latest comic books.

More From Natalie Lindner