‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ on Nintendo Switch 2: a killer app for mouse controls

Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch 2 is not entirely new Mario Creator game, but this will do until there is one.

On January 15, the popular Switch version of the real-time city management series will get a $4.99 Switch 2 upgrade for those who already own it on Switch. This will coincide with a fairly large free update to the Switch 1 and Switch 2 versions of New horizons. (See our previous coverage of Animal crossing(first update in years.)

After watching a hands-on demo of the update offered by Nintendo, I can confirm that everything appears as advertised; The Switch 2 version offers sharper visuals and deeper multiplayer features, and the free update offers a bunch of wacky new things to do on your island, like themed hotel rooms for guests.

What stands out most: the way it uses the Switch 2’s mouse controls, which have been underutilized by almost every game on the new console thus far.

How mouse controls could get younger Animal crossing on switch 2

The demo I saw only briefly focused on mouse controls, but it ended up being the most impactful part of the entire presentation for me. I’ve been waiting for a game to really justify why Nintendo included mouse functionality on the Switch 2.

Metroid Prime 4 comes closest, but even that is more comfortable to play with a controller, in my experience. Until now, mouse controls have felt like a gimmick.

The mouse is present in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch 2, from what I can tell, works exactly as you would expect. The most obvious application is interior decoration. You can use the mouse cursor to drag and drop objects into rooms as you see fit, rather than having to do it with an analog stick.

This allows for greater precision and efficiency in the decorating process, and it’s a total no-brainer once you see it in action.

It’s much better than using a controller.
Credit: Nintendo

The mouse is not just for grabbing and placing single objects. You can actually drag the cursor over an entire set of elements and move them all at once. For example, if you want to take an entire living room set (including the furniture and the rug under the furniture), just drag the mouse over all of those things, and it will allow you to move them all at once.

You can also use mouse controls to draw designs for shirts and the like, which could be a huge boon to the creative side of Animal crossing.

I’m not the biggest Animal crossing dude (I bounced on New horizons after a week or two), but seeing this in action made me want to give it another shot. Being able to decorate and design quickly and intuitively using the Switch 2’s mouse could breathe new life into a game that hasn’t received substantial feature updates in four years.

More talented people than me will definitely be able to use it to create awesome houses or fashionable shirt designs, after years of doing it on controllers.

It’s a small thing, overall, but it might turn out to be the best part of the Switch 2 version of Animal crossing. It also gives me hope that Nintendo will find clever ways to incorporate it into other future games. Like, say, a game where you create your own Mario levels.