It looks like yesterday’s leaked Animal Crossing: New Horizons code was correct as Nintendo has announced ‘Nature Day,’ which is going to run from April 23rd to May 4th.
Nature Day is the first in a long line of planned events to keep Animal Crossing villagers busy until June. Its focus is on planting flowers and a new ‘Shrub’ plant around your island. You’ll buy these from a unique character named Leif. He first appeared in the 3DS game Animal Crossing: New Leaf, where he ran a plant nursery. It appears that he’ll function similarly in New Horizons, but it’s unclear if he’ll set up a physical shop or just sell his wares from the Resident Services plaza.
Players will also be able to earn Nook Miles in the game by planting flowers, shrubs and trees which can be redeemed throughout the first week of May for a special ‘May Day Ticket’ that will take them to a secret island that seems to be hiding a special Animal Crossing character.
[Announcement] More good times await in #AnimalCrossing: New Horizons, starting with the free April update landing on your island 4/23! Check out new seasonal events like Nature Day, two new merchants: Leif & Redd, and the addition of an art gallery to the museum! #ACNH pic.twitter.com/aXQNZbzprF
— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) April 21, 2020
Once you get the update, Crazy Redd the fox — who now goes by ‘Jolly Redd’ — will sell you art and exclusive coloured furniture. He’ll periodically dock his ship/shop at the small beach located at the top of your island so you won’t be able to buy from him every day.
If you’re new to Animal Crossing, Redd sells art that can be donated to the museum, which is being updated to support this. The trick is that the art he sells is sometimes fake. Generally, in older games, he’d sell three of four pieces of art, and only one of them would be real. It would be up to you to find out which one is real and then donate that one to the museum.
From May 18th to the 31st, players will also get to celebrate International Museum Day in the game with a new ‘Stamp’ system for interacting with museum exhibits and earning unique rewards.
In June, ‘Wedding Season’ will kick off on your Animal Crossing island. During this time, you can travel to Harvey’s island to take anniversary photos of the couple Reese and Cyrus, who ran the ‘Re-Tail’ shop in the 3DS Animal Crossing game.
Nintendo is rolling out the update on April 23rd and players should start seeing the first stage of this update shortly after that.
This is the Japanese gaming giant’s second attempt at an in-game event after ‘Bunny Day.’ The Easter-type event didn’t go off without a hitch since it lasted for so long and limited players’ ability to catch fish, but in the end, Nintendo adjusted it to be more player-friendly.
None of these upcoming events seem as disruptive as the previous event and are more aimed at adding missing features to the game like Lief, Redd and the art section to the museum that arguably should have been available at the start.
At the top of this article, I mentioned this update confirms a batch of datamined code that came out yesterday. That said, there are some features in the code that don’t appear in the update. This included the Brewster’s Café, Gyroids and a Nooks Cranny upgrade. However, since everything else from the leak has been confirmed, it now seems more likely these things will be added in the future.
