Animal Crossing’s big new amiibo update is available now

Last night during the Animal Crossing Direct a whole slew of new content was announced for the 2013 3DS title and the best part is — it’s available now! The update adds new features and amiibo support on both the 3DS and New 3DS Range. Those with the former will require the amiibo NFC reader to access some of these features.

If you’ve let your town duties as mayor fall onto the back burner recently, don’t fear. You have the option to either keep your town as it is or start afresh. Sure, if you choose to wipe away your town, along with all the villagers, public works and development, it won’t be a total loss. Tom Nook will pay you a pretty penny for everything in your town. This means if you got a bit tired of your old town and animal friends, you don’t have to start from scratch with empty pockets.

As for the new features, let’s start with amiibo. A new series of Animal Crossing: New Leaf amiibo cards can be used to invite a total of 50 new animals to your village. When you scan a card the ghost genie Wisp appears and takes on that animals form. You can then ask him to grant a wish for that animal to come visit. The animal will now come to visit, in an RV no less, at the new campgrounds run by its proprietor Harvey.

RVs are just like your regular villagers’ houses. You can check out their styling skills or have a chat. If you really like them you can even ask them to move to your town permanently. They’ll also sell you items with a new currency called MEOW Coupons. MEOW stands for Mutual Exchange of Wealth and you earn them by completing town initiatives, which are more or less the things you do on a daily basis anyway. It’s kind of like a daily objective list. MEOW Coupons aren’t just accepted by the nomadic visitors. Harvey also sells a range of new items from his outdoor store.

The current existing range of Animal Crossing amiibo cards and figures can also be used in-game and if you have a save file from Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, you can order new giant furniture items from the Nooklings store. You can also test out the new amiibo camera to set up your own pictures of animal crossing characters appearing in the real world. Reminiscent of the AR camera, you can change their pose, size and rotation to get the perfect composition.

It doesn’t end with just Animal Crossing amiibo. Nintendo have introduced a series of crossovers, including Sanario characters, The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon! Some of the new amiibo cards will be Sanario themed, which is great if you love Hello Kitty. For Zelda and Splatoon, you can use the existing amiibo to bring in some new visitors with a range of themed items for you to order for your own house. Some of that Splatoon Furniture looks great. You might even get a visit from Wolf Link himself.

If amiibo aren’t your thing there’s still some new content for you to dig into. With the Nintendo 3DS and New 3DS in-game items, you can activate a Puzzle League minigame, where your match-3 skills are required to get the support of the locals to help you become more popular than your opponent. It includes both a story and endless mode.

The new Wii U in-game item unlocks the Desert Island Escape minigame. It is comprised of selecting three animals from your village who you need to have work together to gather enough materials to get off the island. The catch is you only have seven days to do this. Along with raft building materials, you’ll have to make sure you get enough food for them to live. Different animals have different abilities, so you will have to choose well!

Nintendo have also addressed some niggling little things in the game. If you have a visiting Mayor in your town and you don’t like what they have to say, you can simply turn the chat function off. There’s also a new add-on that you can buy for your house from our old friend Tom Nook. It’s called The Secret Storeroom. It’s not a physical room in your house, but an invisible storage space for you to keep your hoarded items that you don’t have on display, but also don’t want to part with. Finally, you’ll be able to take part in a new design seminar which will allow you to organise your furniture with the touchscreen, a la Happy Home Designer.

It’s good to see Nintendo adding new support to this three year old title across the entire 3DS range, including the 2DS. So if you’ve been playing religiously since 2013, or are more like me and left your humble townsfolk to fend for themselves for a while, there’s certainly enough new content here to tempt you back into your gubernatorial duties.

The Welcome amiibo update can be downloaded now from the 3DS eShop now.