Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Review

Island life on new hardware

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is not a reinvention of Nintendo’s island getaway. It is the same cozy life sim that swallowed hundreds of hours back in 2020, now running natively on more powerful hardware, wrapped around the substantial free 3.0 update, and optionally unlocked through a $4.99 upgrade for existing owners. The question is not whether New Horizons is still a great game. It is. The question is whether this specific platform upgrade meaningfully changes day‑to‑day island life for lapsed mayors and obsessive decorators.

The answer is that it improves the experience in several clear ways, especially if you bounced off the original’s blurry handheld image or sluggish loading, but it is also a strangely conservative effort that never fully embraces what Switch 2 can do.

Visual upgrades: cleaner, sharper, but restrained

Out of the box, the Switch 2 Edition’s headline feature is its higher native resolution. In portable mode, the game now targets a full 1080p, while docked play pushes up to 4K. The result is immediate the moment you step off Dodo Airlines. Grass patterns look more like woven fabric and less like smeared watercolor, the stitching on clothes and umbrellas pops in a way the original hardware could only imply, and UI text is so crisp you will notice tiny icon details you probably never saw before.

Nintendo has not radically overhauled the underlying assets. Character models, animation sets, and most texture work date back to the original release. There is no new lighting model, no dramatic material rendering, and, crucially, no bump to the 30 frames per second cap. This has been a sticking point for many players who expected 60 frames per second as table stakes for a paid platform upgrade. The art direction still sings and the game benefits noticeably from the cleaner presentation, but the absence of a smoother frame rate is impossible to ignore, particularly after you have seen other Switch 2 Edition titles double their frame rate.

To Nintendo’s credit, stability is excellent. Even heavily decorated five‑star islands that used to buckle the original Switch’s dynamic resolution hold their clarity on Switch 2. Busy plazas full of custom designs, particle effects from fountains and sparklers, and eight or more villagers milling around no longer trigger the soft, Vaseline‑smeared look veterans will remember. Aliasing is also improved; edges on fences, rooflines, and tree canopies still have some stair‑stepping if you stare, but shimmer in motion is reduced, especially on a Switch 2’s sharper screen.

In short, your island has never looked this good on a Nintendo system. It just does not feel like a transformative generational leap so much as the version New Horizons always wanted to be.

Performance: still 30fps, but solid where it counts

The decision to keep New Horizons locked at 30fps is baffling when other Switch 2 Editions demonstrate that the hardware is more than capable of 60. The laid‑back tempo of Animal Crossing softens the blow somewhat; this is not a reflex‑driven action game where frame pacing defines responsiveness. Yet after spending time with smoother Switch 2 software, the low cap is noticeable when you swing the camera, run along the shoreline, or rotate furniture rapidly in decorating views.

That said, the Switch 2 Edition does feel better in moment‑to‑moment play than running the original Switch version in backward compatibility. Frame pacing hitches that could appear during heavy rain, fireworks shows, or densely decorated outdoor markets are much rarer. Animations feel a touch more consistent, and input latency seems fractionally improved, which helps when you are chiseling custom paths or trying to land precise shovel digs between flowers.

It is a quiet, quality‑of‑life upgrade rather than a showcase. You are still living in a 30fps world, just a more stable and predictable one.

Loading: the first truly next‑gen feeling change

If there is one area where the Switch 2 Edition earns its keep, it is loading. The move to Switch 2 storage makes a dramatic difference in how quickly you get in and out of your island.

Cold boots that could previously take close to half a minute now drop into the title screen in around ten seconds. After selecting your profile, the iconic airplane flyover is shaved down significantly. More importantly, mid‑session loading is vastly improved. Popping into Nook’s Cranny, the Able Sisters, the museum, or the new resort hotel added with 3.0 takes only a couple of seconds. Multiplayer visits over local or online play also benefit, reducing the painful downtime every time a new player arrives or leaves.

If you were the type of player who thought twice about dropping into the clothing shop because it meant yet another long fade to black, those small frictions are largely gone. Decorating sessions that involve repeated trips inside and outside, to storage and back out to the yard, feel much smoother. Combined with the higher resolution, this is where the Switch 2 Edition most convincingly sells the fantasy of a living, always‑ready island rather than a world gated by loading doors.

Beyond 3.0’s content: what the paid upgrade actually buys you

The free 3.0 update is where almost all of the new systemic and structural content lives, and it is available whether you are on original Switch hardware or Switch 2. The resort hotel, fresh activities, new items, and other mechanics reshape New Horizons in a way that deserves its own coverage.

What the actual Switch 2 Edition and $4.99 upgrade deliver, separate from 3.0’s universal features, is narrower but important if you are particular about how you play. You get the native resolution bump, the improved loading pipeline, platform‑specific visual refinements, and expanded online support like 12‑player island visits that leverage Switch 2’s networking and CPU headroom. You also get minor interface tweaks tuned around the Switch 2’s display, with sharper font rendering and cleaner icons.

If you already own the original New Horizons, the cold reality is that you are paying not for new missions or villagers, but for presentation and comfort. For some returning island owners, especially those planning another 100‑hour run, the value is straightforward. For others who mostly want to check out the resort and a few new items, backward compatible play on Switch 2 with the free 3.0 update is perfectly serviceable.

Returning to an old island versus starting fresh

For returning players, the Switch 2 Edition subtly changes the emotional feel of coming back. Loading into a long‑abandoned town on original hardware could feel like dredging up the past, complete with long waits and a slightly murky image that highlighted just how many objects you had crammed into every corner. On Switch 2, reentering a cluttered, late‑game island is smoother and visually cleaner, which lowers the psychological barrier to quick visits.

Weekly maintenance runs, turnip trading sessions, and seasonal event check‑ins benefit the most. It is easier to justify a fifteen‑minute play session when you are not burning several of those minutes on airplane cutscenes and door transitions. The added headroom for online play, especially with larger groups visiting your island simultaneously, also makes New Horizons feel more like a proper social platform and less like a fragile networked diorama that collapses under traffic.

The tradeoff is that this is still fundamentally the same game, warts and all. If you burned out on New Horizons’s progression pacing, its reliance on daily checklists, or its economy quirks, the Switch 2 Edition will not change your mind. The 3.0 update offers new wrinkles to engage with, but at a platform level this edition is about refinement, not reinvention.

Is the Switch 2 Edition upgrade worth paying for?

Judged purely as a platform upgrade, Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is both generous and underwhelming. The $4.99 price for existing owners is low, especially compared with next‑gen upgrade fees in other corners of the industry. For that you get a cleaner, more stable, faster‑loading version of one of Nintendo’s best games, bundled with a free update that adds real meat to the experience.

At the same time, Nintendo is leaving obvious improvements on the table. A 60fps performance mode would have immediately justified the upgrade for many players. More dynamic lighting, even in limited contexts like interiors, could have given veterans a more noticeable visual refresh. As it stands, the Switch 2 Edition often feels like the bare minimum technical work needed to tick the “enhanced” box for a new console launch lineup.

For new players coming in on Switch 2, this is unquestionably the definitive way to experience New Horizons. The slow burn of island life pairs beautifully with sharply rendered visuals and fast transitions. For returning island owners, the calculus is more personal. If you are planning a full‑scale return, renovating your layout, and investing in the expanded social features, the upgrade is easy to recommend. If you only intend to dip in occasionally to see what 3.0 added, you can safely stick with the free update and original version, ideally running under backward compatibility on Switch 2 if you have made the hardware jump.

Verdict

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is a better way to live out your virtual island fantasy, but it could and should have been more. The sharper image, sturdier performance, and dramatically improved loading collectively make it hard to go back to the original release, and the low upgrade fee softens the blow. Yet for a flagship first‑party title that defined the Switch era, its debut on new hardware feels surprisingly cautious.

If you already love New Horizons and plan to lose yourself in its rhythms again, the Switch 2 Edition is worth the modest price of readmission. If you were hoping the series’ first native outing on Nintendo’s new console would meaningfully modernize the experience, you will find yourself watching that familiar Dodo Airlines landing in higher resolution, wondering what might have been.