12-Player Animal Crossing: New Horizons Is a Nightmare Because Nintendo Handles Online Functionality in the Most Ridiculous Way Possible

Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a large 3.0 update earlier this month, which alongside a batch of caller contented for everyone included a Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade with immoderate fancy technological buffs. One of those was the quality to play with up to 12 full radical connected the aforesaid island, up from 8 successful the archetypal version.

Sounds fun, right? Wrong. It's a nightmare. A nightmare erstwhile again spawned by Nintendo handling online functionality successful the astir ridiculous mode possible.

I was truthful foolish and naive a week ago, erstwhile I archetypal had the thought to get 12 of america unneurotic for an Animal Crossing session. It would beryllium easy, I thought! So easy, I primitively didn't adjacent program connected penning thing astir it! Let maine conscionable telephone up...11 different radical I cognize who are inactive playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Who besides person Nintendo Switch 2s.

And someway we'll negociate to find an hr we tin each bash this, contempt everyone being engaged adults.

Okay, harder than I thought, but we did it! Last night, a radical of 12 of america each logged connected astatine erstwhile with a program to conscionable up connected my island. We considered utilizing the Game Chat functionality, but decided against it owed to deficiency of compatibility with Bluetooth headsets, the function's friending requirements, and the information that you can't instrumentality screenshots portion Game Chat is active. Discord it was, then, seemingly inactive the second-best spot for Nintendo Voice Chat (after the podcast, of course).

The program was for an hour-long league from 9pm to 10pm past night, but I recalled that the cutscene for radical landing connected the land was a spot lengthy, and we'd person to ticker it 11 times, truthful I logged connected fractional an hr aboriginal to unfastened my land truthful we could commencement filtering in. I was hopeful that with improved Nintendo Switch 2 loading times, it mightiness not beryllium truthful bad. And it's true, the existent loading times were notably faster, though astir of the hold for radical to onshore is simply a operation of said cutscene ("We'll beryllium making a h2o landing, but that's OK due to the fact that this is simply a seaplane.") and everyone redeeming the crippled each time, truthful we didn't truly shorten the hold by that much.

But each that was to beryllium expected. Here was wherever the nightmare began.

At 8:35pm, my friends began trickling in. We managed to get 3 radical successful earlier the full league crashed, booting retired everyone who had showed up truthful acold and shutting my islands gates for me. I reopened astatine 8:46pm and we started again, this clip creating a "queue" successful our Discord substance chat truthful everyone didn't effort to flood successful astatine once. At 8:58pm, 1 of my friends got an mistake that kicked her retired alongside 1 different person, but everyone other stayed, truthful we brought them backmost and continued down the line.

At 9:19pm, I typed successful Discord, "WE DID IT" arsenic idiosyncratic #12 seemingly landed successfully.

At 9:21pm, arsenic idiosyncratic #12 strolled in, different mistake occurred and 2 different radical got kicked out. At this point, my hubby (who was playing Ace Attorney adjacent to me) started rolling his eyes.

At 9:24pm, 1 of the radical who had been kicked retired tried to rejoin, errored out, and the full league crashed again. Every azygous idiosyncratic got booted backmost to their islands and my gates were closed again, conscionable arsenic we were yet astir to sensation success.

Please bask this timelapse video, courtesy of our intrepid Wiki writer KBABZ, of 40 minutes of america trying desperately to get everyone onto the island, lone for the unthinkable to hap close astatine the precise end:

I was undaunted. By golly, we got each these radical together, we were going to deed each different with nets and driblet look cards for each other! We started again from the top. This clip I forbade everyone from doing thing erstwhile they landed speech from lasting inactive successful a enactment adjacent to the airport. No menuing. No talking to villagers. Nothing. Folks started coming backmost successful astatine 9:27pm. At 9:37pm, the 4th idiosyncratic to articulation crashed the land again. At 9:39pm, astir 40 minutes aft our planned commencement time, we began yet again. Everyone posted feline pics successful the Discord transmission for affectional support.

This clip worked. Finally, astatine 10:05pm, aft aggregate crashes and mendacious starts, we had 12 radical connected my Animal Crossing island.

I'm blessed to study that aft the 90 infinitesimal ordeal that was getting 12 radical onto 1 island, online play really worked great. We each exchanged gifts, took a pic successful the Town Square, explored the island, and got java astatine Brewster's. People wrote connected my bulletin committee and sent maine letters. Some borrowed my Wario costume from the hotel. A mates radical decided to play pranks, burying junk and trapping my villagers with holes. It was genuinely a beauteous large time. It just, you know, took mode excessively dang agelong to acceptable up.

It's baffling to maine that Nintendo's infrastructure for Animal Crossing is inactive acceptable up this way. Yes, the land landing cutscene is precise cute, and I bash deliberation the oversea level enactment is beauteous funny. But wherefore connected world bash we request to beryllium done it 11 times, with everyone who's not traveling collectively watching a mostly-blank airport-themed loading screen? Why does everything connected my land request to wholly frost and exit menus truthful idiosyncratic tin travel in? Why does Group Stretching necessitate maine to beryllium Best Friends with everyone connected my island? How overmuch worse would each this person been if we had utilized Game Chat? Mario Kart World doesn't person this problem!

The champion mentation I tin deliberation of is that Nintendo genuinely didn't mean for anyone to usage this diagnostic successful the archetypal place. Animal Crossing: New Horizons' 3.0 update is fun, sure, but it's not creating the aforesaid monolithic surge successful involvement that existed successful 2020 erstwhile we were each locked astatine location and had thing amended to bash than ponder immoderate it is that Dodos do. You're improbable to ever request to cod 11 friends and resistance them to your land each astatine once. Heck, fixed however hard this was to schedule, I'll beryllium fortunate to get 4 1 of these weekends.

Anyway, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is inactive precise amusive to play with friends, but it's inactive a monolithic symptom successful the butt to really acceptable up the circumstances for that play to beryllium possible. Next clip I'll conscionable get everyone unneurotic for Jackbox.

We're inactive checking retired the large 3.0 update and each the amusive caller worldly that's been added. We've catalogued immoderate of the astonishing small changes, including the quality to strafe and jump, and we've got tips if you, similar us, are returning to your land aft a agelong hiatus. Oh, and cheque retired this Zelda worldly added successful the 3.0 update!

Rebekah Valentine is simply a elder newsman for IGN. Got a communicative tip? Send it to [email protected].

Blogroll representation screenshot courtesy of KBABZ.