Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update 3.0 Is Live Now, A Day Early

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a massive hit when it launched just over six years ago (man, time flies!), but it seemed like Nintendo’s support for the game had come to an end. Then, the company surprised us all when it unveiled the game wouldn’t just be getting a performance-enhanced Switch 2 version, but there would be a huge, completely free, content update for all players. Both the update and Switch 2 version were set to drop tomorrow, January 15, but Nintendo had one last surprise in store for us – the 3.0 update is available now.

After seeing commotion about it online, we at Game Informer have personally verified that the update is available now, and based on similar reports from the fine folks at Eurogamer, this early launch does not seem to be isolated to the US.

There’s no special trick to acquiring it either – 3.0 started downloading on my console as soon as I woke it up this morning. If it doesn’t download for you right away, hover over the application on your Switch’s home screen, press the plus button on the right side of your controller, and head to the “Software Update” portion of the menu, and select “Via the Internet.”

While the 3.0 update is live, the Switch 2 Upgrade is not live. It’s a purchase in the Switch 2 eShop ($4.99 in the US) set to go live tomorrow, and at the time of writing, Nintendo hasn’t pulled the trigger on launching it quite yet. 

That said, if I could only pick one of the two updates to launch early, this would be the one. Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ 3.0 update has the bulk of new content, including the hotel on Kapp’n’s pier, the addition of Slumber Islands, and several new lines of crossover furniture. By contrast, the Switch 2 upgrade provides a performance boost, allows you to play with more people online, and integrates some of the Switch 2’s new features (like mouse controls and GameChat) into regular gameplay.

For more on the new content, check out my impressions from a hands-off preview from last month.

Will you be jumping back into Animal Crossing with the new update? Let us know in the comments!