Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been well received by critics and fans alike for the most part, but there is one aspect of the game's multiplayer features which has driven fans to review bomb the game's rating on Metacritic. To be more specific, the game only allows players to have one island per switch console, and that island can have only one person in charge of making decisions. This is generally not a terrible problem for online play but is a massive limitation in terms of couch co-op, and for a cute, family friendly game like Animal Crossing, that is a major issue.
For those unaware, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has opted to only allow one island (effectively a save file) per switch console. Buying additional copies of the game will not even allow players to have another island, meaning that everyone who wants to play must have all their characters share an island. As was briefly mentioned before, though, only the creator of that island has the permissions necessary to make decisions about the island and advance in any meaningful way through the game. As a result, fans have taken to online review sites like Metacritic and begun dropping throngs of bad reviews.
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Review Bombing Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Review bombing is an internet phenomenon which describes when large quantities of users take to their keyboards to leave extremely negative reviews for something in hopes to lower its score. In the case of gaming, this is often a tactic used to attempt to get the attention of developers in hopes of seeing problematic things in a game fixed, and that's exactly what's happening on Metacritic right now. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has had mostly positive reviews, with over 650 on Metacritic at the time of writing, but negative reviews are quickly catching up, with almost 400 currently.
Why Only One Island?
It is worth noting that this approach to save files is nothing new for the Animal Crossing franchise, as something very similar was implemented in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In that game, each game cartridge was limited to one town, and just like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the player that founded the town was the mayor. Everyone else could live in the town, but would be unable to make decisions in the same capacity. The key difference here is that New Leaf was a Nintendo DS game, so it is less surprising to see Nintendo expect that everyone will have their own Nintendo DS.
Fix Animal Crossing: New Horizons One Island Issue
Honestly, fixing the one island problem would not be terribly difficult, and there are a number of ways Nintendo could solve the issue without straight up allowing numerous islands. It is possible that the restriction was put in place in response to technical limitations of the Switch, although this seems unlikely, but there are other alternatives. Perhaps the most obvious potential fix would be to allow more than one character to make decisions about the progress of the island.
This isn't a one hundred percent fool proof fix, as there is still the issue of having to share a single island and agree on decisions, but it would at least rectify the issue players have with how only the founder of the island can make any real progress in the game. Removing the tether between players and adding some kind of split screen functionality for couch co-op would be extremely helpful too, as having to share the limited resources of the island is even harder when stuck on the same screen as one's partner. Finally, Animal Crossing: New Horizons could just add the capability to create more than one save file.
Why One Island is a Problem
Unlike Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a console game. Despite the Nintendo Switch's interesting status as part console, part handheld, it is simply unrealistic to expect more than one in a home. With a limitation of one island per console rather than per user or even per copy of the game, it effectively renders the game to only truly being playable by one user in the entire household. This is a problem for any household with multiple people in it, but is amplified even more in households with numerous children.
Animal Crossing is a great game for kids, given its creative aspects, relative simplicity, cute graphics, and kid-friendly content, but the restriction of one island per switch makes it very difficult for New Horizons to fill that role. Any parents with more than one child would effectively have to pick one kid to be the island's founder, meaning that none of the others would get to fully experience the game for what it is. Beyond that, neither parent would be able to play the game either, not even on their own on a separate save file. This limitation is so bizarre despite it being grounded in the rest of the franchise.
Furthermore, many active Animal Crossing veterans are accustomed to owning multiple cartridges and running multiple towns. This sort of style of play is not possible under the new method of save files, much to the dismay of users. The likely distinction between the Nintendo DS and Switch versions of Animal Crossing games is that DS games store save files on the cartridge while save files are stored on the actual console itself in the case of the Switch. Still, many other games are capable of making a separate save file for each user on the Switch, so it's unclear why Animal Crossing: New Horizons can't do the same.
These are just a few potential solutions for ways that the one island restriction on Animal Crossing: New Horizons could be fixed. The problem doesn't affect solo gamers or those who mostly play online as much, but if reviews on Metacritic are anything to go on, it still desperately needs to be fixed. Hopefully Nintendo listens to fans and how they are responding and decides to do something about it.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for the Nintendo Switch.