Surprise Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update Removed "Star Fragment Trees"

A rather small update was released to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but it still has the community buzzing. A surprise update to the popular recreational island life game has undone a popular game hack: Star Fragment Trees.

We know what you're thinking, "I've never seen a star fragment tree." And if Nintendo has their way, you shouldn't. These special trees are the result of a modified game hack. These hackers figured out how to replace the money bags generated from money trees with whatever items they want, be it star fragments, fossils, or even more money trees.

The most popular item were Star Fragments, a rare-ish item only found by wishing on a shooting star. These trees were a common sale item on the Animal Crossing Black Market, which is a fancy way to say a Discord channel where you PayPal the hackers three dollars for a tree.

The recent update, which brings the game to version 1.4.1, patches out the ability for hackers to make this modification, and reverts any previously made star trees to regular money trees.

This has upset a number of people, who used Star Fragment trees for an extra degree of cosmetic style to their island. A common theory is that the release of Dream Addresses created an increased awareness of islands using the hacked trees. Eventually this awareness reached the Animal Crossing development team, who found them to be against the spirit of the game, prompting the update.

This isn't the ONLY thing the update addressed. The official patch notes also remark on a bug regarding glowing dirt spots and shovel throwing:

• Fixed an issue where shining soil disappears after returning to your own island after a dream and buried Bells appear in that location instead.
• Fixed an issue where the player swings their shovel through the air when attempting to hit a rock placed at a certain location.

Admittedly, we didn't actually know about these special trees until this update came out. We'd have loved a tree growing bones, personally.

Header image by PeachyIsle