You probably know that many of the same people, who work on Animal Crossing also work on the Splatoon franchise. I mean the new Splatoon 3 DLC literally has characters that are inspired by Animal Crossing New Horizons.
Also, this fact is heavily cited as the reason that New Horizons stop receiving support due to the launch of Splatoon 3. I think it's safe to say that a fair amount of Animal Crossing fans have negative feelings towards Splatoon because of this, although it's never been confirmed. this is why Nintendo actually moved away from New Horizons. It is strange that we never got Inkwell.
However, this connection might actually be a really good thing for the future of the Animal Crossing series. In the past, I've discussed how the launch of Splatoon 3 has given us hints on how this team and Nintendo might aim to tackle the next Animal Crossing game and that the way they released updates in DLC for the previous platoon game Splatoon 2. I actually laid out the path for how they ended up releasing updates in DLC in New Horizons a few years later.
Now that we're nearly six months into Splatoon 3 and we've had updates and DLC announced. This bodes really well for the future of Animal Crossing if Nintendo decides to use a similar approach once again, like they did with Splatoon 2 in New Horizons. As long as the content is good enough, it will attract more and more new players and stimulate them to consume ACNH Items in the game.
Nintendo has announced that they'll be releasing two waves of DLC for Splatoon 3 filled with all kinds of exciting content for the franchise. I think like a lot of you, I was really surprised that we only got one wave of DLC for New Horizons despite how well the game sold. I think seeing two waves already for Splatoon 3 and possibly even more in the future shows that Nintendo really took that criticism on board. And hopefully, they've learned that generally speaking players want more content not less.
Related: ACNH: 8 Updates & Changes You Should Know In March 2023
The same could be argued that they're releasing big updates every three months or so. When New Horizons had lots of large gaps, they've kept it much more consistent in Splatoon 3. So, this could definitely be the case for the next Animal Crossing game. Don't get me wrong though I do wish they were doing this right now for New Horizons instead as the next game could be a while off.
Now, the very first wave of DLC that they announced was Splatoon 3. It actually gave me a really interesting idea. You see wave one of the Splatoon 3 DLC was a return to Inkopolis from the very first Splatoon game.
Effectively, this DLC is just a new hub world for you to enjoy. It's kind of a reskin of what you can do in the usual hub world. But it kind of makes me wonder if Nintendo would take this approach and maybe bring back something like the city from Animal Crossing City Folk that we could visit in a DLC for the next Animal Crossing game.
The concept honestly seems really similar and I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo did decide to do that approach after all Nostalgia is incredibly popular. We know it sells really well. I mean I just look at the Pokemon games, so I could definitely imagine Nintendo using the Nostalgia from the old Animal Crossing games in DLC waves and such.
