There's no doubt that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a great game, but it doesn't come without its flaws. While the game looks and plays smoothly, Nintendo ignored several details that would make the gameplay even better.
If Nintendo ever launches a major update for New Horizons, the developers need to add these features.
1. Bulk Crafting
You'd think that crafting multiples of the same item shouldn't take that long. In reality, crafting in New Horizons is a dreadfully slow task.
If you want to craft ten bags of fish bait, you have to craft them one-by-one. This means sitting through the crafting animation and dialogue ten different times. New Horizons is a slow-paced game, but it's just impractical not to include a bulk crafting option.
Right now, fences are the only items that you can craft more than one of at a time—a single crafting sequence yields ten fences. We'd like to see Nintendo include this feature with other items, along with the ability to customize the number of crafted items.
2. Access to Stored Crafting Materials From Your Workbench
The off-site storage of crafting material is just another flaw that slows down the crafting process. As you already know, you can't access any materials from your crafting bench—you have to store everything at your house.
Whenever you run out of materials in the middle of crafting, you have to walk all the way back to your home just to access your storage. It'd make much more sense to have crafting materials stored inside the workbench instead.
3. Skippable Cutscenes
The fact that I have to sit through a cutscene just to visit another friend's island makes me not want to travel at all. You can't even escape these cutscenes when someone visits your island, as you're forced to watch a clip of your friend walking out of the airport.
These cutscenes aren't so bad the first few times you watch them, but they get old fast. Nintendo should make these cutscenes skippable, or should at least shorten them. That way, we can spend more time having fun, and less time watching the same animations over and over again.
4. Precise Island Design Tool
When you're inside your home, pressing Down on the d-pad lets you enter design mode. This handy feature gives you a 360-degree view of your room, lets you move furniture without having to push it, and even lays down a grid.
Why can't we have this feature outside the house as well? Island decorating could become so much more precise if we had a similar tool.
5. Stackable Inventory
New Horizons only lets you stack specific items in your inventory. Not to mention that some of these items are only stackable up to a certain amount. While you can stack up to 99 weeds in one inventory slot, you can only stack up to 30 stones—how does that make any sense?
Nintendo needs to even out New Horizon's inventory bias. Every item should be stackable up to 99, not just weeds.
6. Larger Selection of Outdoor Furniture in the Nook Stop
I have to say that I'm disappointed in the selection of furniture that you can redeem with Nook Miles. Initially, I assumed that the Nook Stop selection would change as time went on.
After months into the game, the stock still hasn't been refreshed. If Nintendo never rotates or adds to the inventory, it'll continue to prevent players from getting creative with their islands.
7. Map of Villager Locations
Your island isn't that big, but it seems massive when you can't find a specific villager. Instead of making players play the guessing game, Nintendo should add each villager's location on the map.
Every villager should get their own icon that moves as they move—that way, players will no longer have to walk through the entire map just to find one character.
8. Equal-Sized Rooms
Do you feel that you've been getting ripped off with your house upgrades? You're not alone. Despite paying hundreds of thousands of bells to add side rooms to your home, you can't increase their size—only the main room can get an upgrade.
In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, players could expand any room in their house. That said, Nintendo really took a step back by failing to include this feature in New Horizons.
9. Ability to Redeem Nook Miles in Bulk
Redeeming your Nook Miles for multiple items should take less than one minute. Unfortunately, Nintendo has turned a one-minute task into a five-minute (or more) job.
When you buy more than one bell voucher or Nook Miles ticket, you're stuck watching the Nook Stop print out a slip of paper for each purchase. If Nintendo simply added a bulk order option, players could spend a lot less time standing in front of the Nook Stop.
10. Customizable Fences
New Horizons doesn't let you set up that white picket fence that you've been longing for. Each fence must stay its original color, and to make matters worse, most fences are a bland brown. The fact that you can customize a watering can, but not a fence, makes absolutely no sense.
11. Better Camera Angles
The adjustable camera in New Horizons just isn't enough. You can only adjust it up or down, not left or right.
Nintendo needs to give players the ability to tilt the camera from side to side. Without a fully tiltable camera, trees, houses, and buildings will forever block the player's line of sight when trying to fish, plant flowers, or catch bugs.
Improving the Animal Crossing Experience
With just some small adjustments, New Horizons can become much more player-friendly. There's no reason for Nintendo not to add these changes, as they'll improve gameplay without taking away from the soul of the game.