The ever evolving world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to move forward following the recent Easter activities with Zipper. This week, Nintendo released a new trailer showing off all of the seasonal events fans can look forward to through June. There's something new going on every few weeks from May Day to International Museum Day but for the majority of fans, the game's biggest seasonal event is actually just days away.
Kicking off on April 23 is Nature Day, an Animal Crossing: New Horizon event that is based on the real life holiday, Earth Day. Naturally, the event will bring a lot of flowers and other greenery to the game that can be planted around the player's island. The two week event will also bring back Leif the Sloth.
Who is Leif?
Originally introduced in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Leif the Sloth ran the town's gardening store. Through him, players could purchase all kinds of things like flowers, trees, fertilizer, and many gardening supplies like watering cans. He was also responsible for Weeding Day, an event which would occur if the player's town had become overrun with weeds. By picking them all, Lief would reward the player with a prize.
Interestingly enough, Leif does reference the iconic artist Bob Ross by calling his flower bags as "happy flower bags." This is a nod to Ross' iconic saying, Happy Little Trees, when paining on his television show, The Joy of Painting. Leif has also made cameos in Nintendo's other mega franchise, Super Smash Bros, as a collectible trophy and a spirit.
What's His Role in New Horizons?
Naturally, Leif has been put in charge of Nature Day, where his Gardening Cart regularly visits player's islands. Setting up shop int he plaza outside of the Resident Services building, players can purchase an assortment of gardening related merchandise from the sloth. As shown in the recent trailer, Leif will have seeds, saplings, shrubbery, and more for various amounts of bells.
Along with being able to beautify the island, players will also be able to take part in limited time Nature Day activities including special Nook Miles achievements. Under the Nook Miles+ section, there'll be special tasks available including ones for planting shrubs which come with x5 multipliers for the Nook Miles rewards. Natrually, this will be a great way to quickly build up points to purchase special goods like more inventory space.
Leif will start making the rounds on April 23 when Nature Day kicks off in full. Players will have until May 4 to take advantage of the greenery as the Nature Day event will come to a close for another year.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available for the Switch.