Swim, Dive, and Collect in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Summer Update

The last of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons events have concluded. Leaving many players to ask what's next for the comforting island simulator. Fortunately, they didn't have to ask for long, as Nintendo has released another announcement trailer, showcasing what's next for the game: swimming!



Referred to as the Free Summer Update - Wave One, players will soon be able to equip a diving suit and go swimming in the ocean that surrounds their island. And while they're out there, they can dive to the ocean floor, collecting the creatures that lay there. These creatures can be donated to the Museum to expand the local aquarium to an even greater degree. To help guide the player through the process, an old pal named Pascal the Otter has returned to float comfortably in the wake. Lastly, the unlucky pelican Gulliver will be sporting a pirate themed outfit for the summer!

Best of all? The Wave One update is only a week away. The update is marked to go live on July 3, next Friday.

Before this, New Horizons last big update introduced Lief, a gardening-loving sloth character, the option to plant shrubs, the untrustworthy art salesman Jolly Red, and the art section of the museum. All of these features were in previous games, while being strangely missing from New Horizons.

This may seem familiar to Animal Crossing veterans. Deep Sea Diving was a feature introduced in the previous title, Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This update appears to be following a similar theme to the previous updates, adding in content and features that were in previous games but absent from this iteration. This further supports the theory that Nintendo is using the post-launch timeframe to develop and introduce content they wanted but had to cut due to deadlines, especially considering New Horizons delay.

That's not all. At the end of the trailer, they reveal that they have another update planned for launch in early August, Free Summer Update - Wave 2. Currently, we don't know what this update will contain, but they assured us that this information is coming soon.

Diving for creatures was along the collection of rumors spread by data miners, who claimed that they found game code implying the feature. These same miners accurately predicted the implementation of Redd and the art museum, and have quickly become a trusted source of speculation. Some other features they discovered evidence of include The Roost (the coffee shop from previous games), gardening, and cooking. These will be the features we most expect to see from the Wave 2 update, though there is no knowing for sure until Nintendo announces it themselves.

Regardless of what happens, we're excited to try it out.