'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' To Add Swimming, Diving In Summer Update

Just in time for summer, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is introducing a couple of features that many of its players have long been clamoring for.

A new trailer from Nintendo shows “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” players can expect when the first summer update is released on July 3. Some pretty sizeable additions will finally include swimming as well as diving in the waters around your island, reports Pocket-lint.

Players have long suspected that swimming and diving would be added once the game was launched in March 2020, but Nintendo held off until now. This opens a whole new bunch of creatures that players can collect and add to Blathers’ collection. Blathers is, of course, the owl who serves as director of the museum in the game.

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” was released in March and quickly sold five million digital copies in its first month, breaking the console game record for most digital units sold in a single month. Though the success of “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” has been credited to the spread of the coronavirus, the game’s popularity remains high to date.

The trailer indicates that players will be able to dive off the rocks that border the ocean in some spots on their island, swim around the surface, then dive down where players can see bubbles to search for goodies and creatures.

As the trailer states that “The oceans open up,” the game opens up with new encounters as well. A friendly diver named Pascal looks like he’s interested in what the player can find below the waves and there’s even a new pirate-like costume for the perennially shipwrecked Gulliver.

New items can be added to decorate a player’s home, including underwater-themed décor like a mermaid dresser or even a whole room that makes a player feel like they’re under the sea.

Perhaps more importantly, a second summer update has been announced for August so there’s more for “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” fans to look forward to in the coming months.

Pocket-lint notes that Nintendo clearly planned ahead with a lot of post-launch support for “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” even before the game surged in popularity. Here’s hoping that they keep delivering on the fun and extending the life of this game even further.