It is no secret that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a resounding success for Nintendo. Not only was Nintendo able to bring new features to the game that set  Animal Crossing: New Horizons apart from its predecessors, but the game itself offered an escape to players, especially during the height of major lockdowns due to the pandemic.

Last March, Animal Crossing: New Horizons celebrated its first anniversary, and Nintendo announced that the game was able to sell over 31 million copies worldwide within that time. Of course, while the impressive sales figure is good news for Nintendo, the studio now faces a big challenge: how do they top Animal Crossing: New Horizons' success?

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Although Nintendo continues to support Animal Crossing: New Horizons with in-game events, festivals, and activities, the game turning one-year-old means that events will be repeated, and new content could start to dwindle. Given the relaxed and slow-paced gameplay of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, some players may start to feel burnt out from the repetitive day-to-day activities the game offers. Like previous entries, this could result in Animal Crossing: New Horizons losing its player base, which is not necessarily bad for Nintendo, given that the company has already benefitted from players purchasing the game.

However, if Nintendo wants to keep players engaged, which could result in more players purchasing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it is now the perfect time for the company to release paid DLC and content expansions. Ever since the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons last March, there have been few major changes made to the game, and most changes are in the form of new mechanics such as swimming, new items, events, and guest characters.

Should Nintendo introduce a major update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the company should expand the gameplay mechanics currently available in the game. Nintendo could include festivals where players can engage in various activities with villagers instead of having them run around town pretending to participate. It would also be nice to see the mechanics of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, where players can take an interior designer's role and renovate the homes around town where their work will be judged by other villagers or even other players multiplayer.

Speaking of multiplayer, Nintendo could also introduce a DLC that revolves around a new storyline where players can band together online and engage in quests. The list of improvements that Nintendo could introduce to Animal Crossing: New Horizons is basically endless, which is why having a paid DLC could be the only way for Nintendo to top the success of the social simulator game.

The question now is, will Nintendo spend its time and resources to develop a big content expansion for Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Although past games had free DLCs, there weren't any major expansions released that drastically changed gameplay. Based on Animal Crossing's history, it seems that a paid DLC is unlikely, especially now that Nintendo appears to be dedicating its resources to upcoming games on the Switch.

Several months ago, Nintendo revealed Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's upcoming remakes, which is tentatively set to release sometime this year. Additionally, Nintendo is working on a new Pokemon game called Pokemon Arceus, which will drastically change how a Pokemon game is played. Apart from Pokemon, Nintendo has several projects in its pipeline, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, and many more.

In the end, Animal Crossing: New Horizons' success resulted in Nintendo facing the impossible task of replicating it. Although there are many ways that Nintendo could surpass the current performance of Animal Crossing: New Horizons by introducing new DLC, it appears now that the game will be taking a break from the spotlight to give way to other Nintendo franchises that are set to release this year.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now for the Nintendo Switch.

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