1. Selfies

One item that Mr Nook does decide to give you is a NookPhone. You can use it to view the map as well as look up crafting recipes. With this knowledge, you can make new items from the resources you collect around the island.
Calling other players on your phone is how you start co-op, too. But, more importantly, you can take selfies with the camera on your phone. Make sure you pout, choose a flattering filter, and do the peace sign. That’s it. You’re on holiday after all – gotta make your friends jealous.
2. Flower power

New Horizons lets you be a hippie. Well, not really, but you’re living among nature, can pick flowers, and then craft them into flower crowns. Close enough. Oh, and you can wear the flower crowns on your head. This is very important news. If you aren’t wearing a flower crown at all times then you aren’t playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons properly. Just saying.
3. Pole vaulting

Who needs bridges? Not you. In New Horizons you can get a pole vault that lets you cross rivers that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. You just shove the stick in the drink and fling yourself across the gap. Good job! You might need to get a run up but it seems like a simple enough move. We hope we can use the pole vault anywhere we want. Fancy jumping over a tree? Yeah, us too. You’re not the boss of us, nature.
There’s no word on whether the Olympics exists in the Animal Crossing universe but if it does we’re sure you’d get the gold. It would definitely be called the Nooklympics, wouldn’t it?
4. Villagers can sit down

You may not think this is a big feature but take a moment to really think about it. Imagine if you’d been a villager in Animal Crossing since the first game came out in 2001. That’s nearly 20 years you’ve been standing up. Your legs must be aching. But now, finally, you can sit. All that weight can just be lifted from you. Just be careful when you bend down as your knees might creak and just give way altogether.
5. Different skin tones

You can now select your skin tone in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You could do this in spin-off titles Happy Home Designer and Pocket Camp, but this is the first mainline game in the series that lets you be a different colour.
6. You can put items anywhere

If Animal Crossing games are all about buying furniture and filling your home with it then New Horizons takes it to the next logical level. Why stop at your home? In the upcoming game you’ll be able to decorate the entire island.
Well, ‘decorate’ may be a generous term for what we plan on doing. Which is dropping various items that we’ve crafted in circles around the other villagers to trap them behind an inescapable wall of junk. That will work, right? Let’s see who has the better of who now, Tom Nook.
7. Eight player co-op

Animal Crossing: New Horizons increases the number of people that can play together in online or local co-op. It used to be four but it’s up to eight now in total. Four people can play on a single screen as long as they each have a Joy-Con, too.
You still can’t set up home on another player’s island, though. And you can’t have multiple islands. But you can visit your friends’ islands and see how their holiday is going, or even help them pick weeds. You can also have eight accounts on a single Nintendo Switch to have eight players living on a single island.
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