Excitement for Animal Crossing: New Horizons remains high following the game's release on March 20. With the end of March, Animal Crossing crossed over into its spring setting, unleashing a new wave of bugs and fish to catch and starting the Bunny Day holiday event. In addition to new content, Nintendo has also issued a new update for Animal Crossing. It's nothing substantial, but it does fix a bug that may have been bothering some of Animal Crossing's most dedicated players.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons update 1.13 fixes only one bug and does nothing else. It's a worthy bug to fix, but it's still surprising that Nintendo put it out as a lone update. The single patch note is: "Fixed an issue where balloons stop showing up." It may seem innocuous at first, but it was a potentially major bug that a lot of players would run into relatively soon.
The bug in question has to do with the Nook Miles system. As Animal Crossing players know, completing tasks in the game rewards Nook Miles. One such task rewarded players for popping balloons to receive their presents. The bug in question occurred when players completed the final task of popping 300 balloons. Balloons would no longer spawn afterward.
Those who have played Animal Crossing since the Bunny Day event likely began to understand why the bug needed to be fixed quickly. Part of the Bunny Day event involves shooting balloons to receive Easter eggs. This type of Easter egg can't be earned any other way. If balloons aren't spawning, then players couldn't earn these Easter eggs and so couldn't complete their Bunny Day recipes.
Compounding the problem, popping these balloons would make completing the Nook Miles task happen much faster. Even if players earned enough Easter eggs for their Bunny Day recipes, they might finish the task and so stop receiving balloon presents. That's why the bug fix was prioritized and released on its own.
If there's an important takeaway from today's Animal Crossing update, it's that Nintendo is paying attention. That doesn't mean that it will update the game constantly, fixing or balancing every little thing. It does mean big problems get fixed quickly, though. And it means that small things are likely being considered and will be addressed in time. For a Nintendo game, that's pretty promising.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now on Nintendo Switch.