Despite new items and events, is Animal Crossing: New Horizons 1.11.0 update another disappointment?

Disappointment seems to run rampant in the Animal Crossing community. Since the game was released in March 2020, it was on a massive trajectory headed for some prestigious superlatives. It quickly became the 10th most sold Nintendo unit of all-time and the second most sold Switch unit after just a year of shelf life.

Then it all went downhill. Nintendo curiously seemed to put Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the back burner and stopped paying any attention to it.

Animal Crossing (Image via Nintendo)

The game quickly stagnated and many players became disappointed and frustrated, but with E3 2021 right around the corner, they were certain their fortunes would reverse.

E3 came and went though, without a single mention of Nintendo's most popular title. Disappointment set in even harder this time. Nintendo saw the reaction and sought to fix it by saying there was a future planned

Soon after, Nintendo announced on Twitter that an update was coming and another one was in the works for a year-end release. Once the first update arrived, though, many players were met with more disappointment.

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The disappointing fireworks update to Animal Crossing

Players quickly realized that this was little more than a seasonal update. The fireworks event is just a recurring event from last year. While some new items were added, it's still not what the players asked for. There are some new events like the Moon Viewing Festival and Chuseok coming in September. However, the update is still underwhelming for many players.

Haven't played animal crossing in a while but damn these updates that they're giving suck. Like it's been almost a year and we haven't gotten much. What about new furniture, new items. What about new projects for the nook miles? New villagers and bro where's Brewster?!

— Marie Sophie (@demiansflower) January 28, 2021

For many Animal Crossing fans, this is just another frustrating development in what may go down in gaming history as one of the biggest missed opportunities. This level of neglect for a game that was as big as Animal Crossing is surprising, to say the least.

I miss animal crossing, and all of you, can someone inspire me to play more? 😭 I really thought the Halloween update would suck me in and it didn’t 💔

— kitten (@KiTTENatAC) October 11, 2020

Animal Crossing data mines have uncovered the potential addition of Brewster, the Roost and Gyroids. Until that happens, if it happens, players are going to stay disappointed, which is something Nintendo probably never wanted in the first place. The once-promising game is floundering, and this update isn't going to fix that.