If the hustle and bustle of modern life's got you down, Tom Nook has a new business venture up his sleeve that he knows you'll adore: the Nook Inc. Deserted Island Getaway Package!

Sure, you've crossed paths with colorful characters near and far. Had a grand time as one of the city folk. May've even turned over a new leaf and dedicated yourself to public service! But deep down, isn't there a part of you that longs for ... freedom? Then perhaps a long walk on the beach of a deserted island, where a rich wealth of untouched nature awaits, is just what the doctor ordered!

Peaceful creativity and charm await as you roll up your sleeves and make your new life whatever you want it to be. Collect resources and craft everything from creature comforts to handy tools. Embrace your green thumb as you interact with flowers and trees in new ways. Set up a homestead where the rules of what goes indoors and out no longer apply.

Make friends with new arrivals, enjoy the seasons, pole-vault across rivers as you explore, and more!

Get ready to expand your horizons!

Nintendo revealed that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be getting a sweeping lineup of new additions and options to enrich your island life through a free update on Nov. 5, 2021.

These free features include characters from the Animal Crossing series, such as the composed Brewster, who will open a café on the second floor of the museum, and the sea shanty singing Kapp’n, who will take you to different islands with his boat; newly opened shops in the plaza on Harv’s Island, including Katrina’s fortune-telling shop; the introduction of cooking and growing vegetables; and a host of other customizations and features.

In addition to this free update, Nintendo also debuted the first details and footage for Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise.

In this paid DLC, you’ll have the chance to join Lottie and the Paradise Planning team. In your new role, you’ll travel to a chain of charming islands where you can design vacation homes, decorate island facilities – like a school and a restaurant – and discover new ways to create and personalize as you gain experience designing dream vacation homes for your clients. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise launches on Nov. 5, and can be purchased for a one-time fee of $24.99. The paid expansionis also supported as a complimentary feature of Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, the new membership plan of Nintendo Switch Online that includes the base Nintendo Switch Online membership, plus additional benefits like access to Nintendo 64 games and SEGA Genesis games. Members can download Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise for free and play while they maintain an active membership. An Individual Membership will cost $49.99 for 12 months, while a Family Membership will cost $79.99 for 12 months.

“With all this new content, we can’t wait for players to rediscover the vibrant world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and enjoy new opportunities for relaxation and self-expression,” said Nick Chavez, Nintendo of America’s Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Communications. “For daily players, returning residents and newcomers alike, we hope both Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise and the free update bring more experiences to your personal island paradise for a long time to come.”

The free update will offer new facilities, characters and support from Resident Services, as well as new gameplay mechanics. Here are just a few of the features and activities that can be enjoyed beginning Nov. 5:

• Brewster Will Open a Café: Something new is coming to a corner of the museum. The quiet proprietor Brewster will open the Roost after you fulfill a certain favor for museum director Blathers. The Roost is a new location to take a relaxing break in and enjoy some hand-selected coffee. You may run into some island residents here, too. If you use the amiibo phone inside the café, you can invite other characters to join you by using compatible amiibo cards. If you’d like, you can even invite friends*** to your island and bring them to the Roost to enjoy relaxing cups of joe together.
• Take a Boat Tour With Kapp’n: Kapp’n hangs out at the pier and will take you to one of the remote islands on his boat. The sea shanty he serenades you with along the way is also part of the fun! You may arrive at islands with mysterious flora that’s never been seen before, or islands with different seasons and times of day. What kind of mysteries await?
• Unearth Gyroids: So far, fossils could be dug up from the ground, and now you can also find gyroids. Each gyroid plays unique sounds. You can even customize them to match their surroundings when you place them!
• Shop at the Open Market on Harv’s Island: Harv’s Island is undergoing a renewal. With a little help from his friend Harriet, Harvey is inviting some shops to the island for an open market. Contribute Bells to the cause to help make it happen! Familiar visitors on your island like Redd, Saharah and Kicks will have shops here now, and Reese & Cyrus’s shop will offer furniture customization that can’t be done through DIY workbenches. At Katrina’s shop, she’ll look at your fortune of the day. Harriet can even teach you some different hairstyles!
• Get Cooking: Cooking will be added to DIY recipes. After growing vegetables in your garden like tomatoes, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes and carrots, you can combine your harvest or other ingredients and fill up your dining table with delicious looking dishes. Enjoy while it’s hot!
• Further Support to Your Island Life: Nook, Inc. will offer further support for your island life. From group stretching at the plaza and bigger home storage, to the Resident Representative being able to establish ordinances like reducing the rate at which weeds grow or making all the residents get up early in the morning, there are more options to help you enjoy and adjust the island to fit your lifestyle.

In addition to these features included with the free update, you may want to consider expanding your island getaway with the Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise paid DLC. In this expansion, you’ll join the Paradise Planning team, where you’ll have the opportunity to design vacation homes for characters, with dozens and dozens of vacationers enjoying your design inspirations! Let’s take a closer look at just some of the experiences you can expect with this new add-on, beginning Nov. 5:

• Work With Lottie as a Member of the Paradise Planning Team: Clients with different dream vacation requests will visit a new resort area located in an archipelago, made up of several different islands, where the Paradise Planning team is located. You can talk to a client and find out the details of their requests for a vacation home, and then make their dreams happen!
• Design Dream Vacation Homes: After choosing a location for your client’s dream vacation home, you can design the interior where you’ll place designated furniture that was delivered ahead of time. As you continue designing vacation homes, you’ll acquire various design techniques, from changing how the home is structured by adding partition walls and pillars to divide the space, to adding counters, ambient lighting and soundscapes to add depth to the room design, and more. The vacation home themes vary depending on the client, and many requests await your expertise. You can also decorate the exterior yard.
• Make Remodeling and Roommate Recommendations: As you gain experience as a designer, more furniture will become available, and you’ll also be able to make more suggestions. These include recommendations like remodeling the vacation homes of clients you’ve helped previously with different furniture, or even recommending that two clients share a room together as roommates.
• Design Facilities: There are several vacant buildings on the island where Lottie’s Paradise Planning team is located. Lottie wants to make this island more robust and developed, so you’ll be able to help design facilities such as a school, restaurant and café.
• Get Inspiration From the Happy Home Network: Capture photos of the vacation homes you design and save them to your catalog, which you can check out through the in-game Happy Home Network app in your NookPhone. From this app, you can also access the Showroom to view the building examples of designers from all over the world who have posted their creations online.**** You can follow the designers you like and view their samples for inspiration.
• Use amiibo To Invite More Clients: Usually your job is to look for clients on the resort who may be considering having their own vacation home, but … if you use the current Animal Crossing series amiibo accessories, you can invite a specific client to discuss their vacation home. With amiibo, you can even design the vacation homes of busy individuals like Isabelle and Timmy & Tommy!
• Bring Your Techniques Back to the Main Island: Techniques you’ve obtained through your work on the Paradise Planning team can also be used on your home island. Perhaps this will be a great opportunity for you to overhaul the design of your own home. And if you give island residents souvenir chocolate from Paradise Planning as a gift, they may become interested in what the archipelagos and vacation homes have to offer. Then, one day when you become a veteran designer with lots of experience, you will eventually be able to remodel residents’ homes on your island by making suggestions to them, too!

But that’s not all! To help further extend your island getaway, on Nov. 5, new Animal Crossing Series 5 amiibo cards will launch in select stores, bringing an additional variety of characters to the amiibo cards lineup. Each individual amiibo card pack will be available for purchase separately at a suggested retail price of $5.99 and will include six cards in each pack. You’ll be able to use these vibrantly designed amiibo cards in compatible games, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Series 5 will encompass a selection of 48 characters total, including new characters and characters never before seen in amiibo card form.

The NookLink service in the Nintendo Switch Online app will be receiving an update on Nov. 5 as well, which will add more in-game items you can redeem with Nook Points and an island newspaper so you can read about the happenings on your island each day. You’ll also be able to check out tips for island living from Island Life 101 and view the Happy Home Network, all from the convenience of your smart device.

Although these features arriving on Nov. 5 will be the last major free content update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, hopefully you’ll continue to enjoy island life for a long time to come.

Key Features

• Customize your character and home, and decorate the landscape (with furniture, if you like!), as you create your very own island paradise.
• Experience a robust new crafting system—collect materials to construct everything from furniture to tools!
• Enjoy a variety of relaxing activities like gardening, fishing, decorating, interacting with charming NPCs, and more, as classic Animal Crossing experiences come to life in fun new ways within the deserted-island setting.
• Life on the Island: Nook Inc. confidently recommends a trip to a remote deserted island. And that’s not just because it’s the only company that offers this type of package! On the island, life is as peaceful and relaxing as it gets. Since the island is deserted, you can create your new life from the very beginning – just like a pioneer! Time flows as naturally as in the real world, including seasons and day and night cycles that mirror real time.
• DIY: By collecting specific materials around the island, you can craft a wide variety of things, including tools and furniture. DIY workshops teach you how to enrich your life by crafting DIY recipes. As you become more familiar with DIY, you can even learn special skills like changing the color of your DIY furniture or decorating them with custom designs.
• NookPhone: Nook Inc. will provide some basic necessities and services, including your very own NookPhone. It has standard apps, like a camera and map, but over time, new applications will be added to support your island needs. The camera can be used to take in-game photos all over the island – you can even add fancy filters like all the cool kids are doing!
• Nook Miles: For players looking for more concrete goals, and to help offer guidance and inspiration on the island, you can take advantage of the Nook Mileage program. As you fulfill certain challenges and experiences, you will earn miles to pay off the cost of the getaway package or, eventually, to exchange for in-game rewards. Rewards range from in-game Nook Inc. merchandise and helpful items that can enrich your time on the island, to tickets that you can use to visit distant islands.
• Island Tours: These “mystery island tours” are at the whim of the pilot, so you never know where you will end up! Once on these smaller islands, feel free to gather as many items as you want – like DIY materials and creatures – and take them back with you to your island.
• Party Play: With the Nook Inc. Deserted Island Getaway package, up to eight people can live on one island.* In Party Play, you can call up to three other players to explore the island at the same time. Whoever calls the others will be the Leader, making the others the Followers. It’s easy to change out the Leader, letting others quickly take charge. Any creatures or items found by Followers will be stored in a recycle box at the Resident Services building!
• Land Development: While you can cross rivers on your island by pole-vaulting and climb elevated land using ladders, you can also change the landscape by adding bridges and slopes. Once your island is fully decked out, you’ll receive a permit to freely pave your own paths, as well as perform major construction like changing the paths of rivers or building and demolishing cliffs. With your own maintenance and construction permits, you can flex your creative muscles on the land itself, not just the stuff on it.
• NookLink: Yes, Tom Nook likes to put his name on everything. But when it’s a Nook product or service, you know you are getting something that’s high quality. With NookLink, which is part of the Nintendo Switch Online app, you can scan a Custom Design QR Code pattern from previous games Animal Crossing: New Leaf or Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer with your real-life smartphone and then download them to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. When connected online, you can talk with friends who also have the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game with the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app using your smartphone as a keyboard or for voice chat. NookLink will launch in March, soon after the selected departure included in your Deserted Island Getaway Package.
• New Residents: When you first land on the island you will only have a few animal residents living there with you. But as you develop your island from the ground up, more neighbors will visit and choose to move in. You can even invite some of the new residents to live there yourself! There’s nothing better than a welcoming neighbor.
• Free Updates: Free updates will be added after the game launches, with seasonal events continually added throughout the year. The first free update will be on launch day, March 20. By installing this update, you can celebrate Bunny Day with a special event in April. If you own both Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp for mobile devices and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll receive special items in each game. Details will be announced at a later date on the official Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Twitter account.
• Additional Facilities: As you grow your island, more facilities will be built. This includes a museum showcasing the rich ecosystem of the island, a shop full of ready-made furniture and goods you can’t craft yourself, a tailor offering clothing and fashion items, and a campsite where you can invite guests for recreational purposes.
• Tourists & Events: Your island will not only be home to new residents, but also tourists as well! These temporary visitors are always welcome and can offer up items that cannot be crafted on the island. Visitors can also participate in fun events like Fishing Tourneys and Bug-Offs, which will pop up throughout the year. Through free updates to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, new special events and seasonal guests will be introduced.
• amiibo Support: Animal Crossing: New Horizons supports amiibo figures and amiibo cards from the Animal Crossing series. You can also invite these familiar faces to Photopia, an island that exists in the game, where you can place models in creative photo shoots.
• Twitter Takeover: Keep an eye out for social media savvy Tom Nook, who is rumored to take over the @AnimalCrossing Twitter account right after today’s video presentation.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.