Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Direct mainly focused on Nintendo’s lifestyle sim, but it’s also where we first learned of a price point for the recently announced Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, which features games from the N64 and Sega Genesis. It will also grant users access to Happy Home Paradise, the new paid DLC expansion for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. However, you’ll be required to keep your NSO membership active in order to maintain access to the Animal Crossing DLC.
Nintendo announced that the Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC, Happy Home Paradise, would be included as a part of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription during the game’s recent Direct. The DLC costs $25 USD as a standalone product, but members of the new NSO plan will not need to make any additional purchases. That said, fine text shown during the event confirmed that if you choose to cancel your Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, then you will lose access to the Happy Home Paradise DLC, as well as any progress tied to it.
In a DLC Q&A session with Nintendo, a spokesperson told Eurogamer that “players can still continue to access certain things they have unlocked in Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise on their main island, including adding counters, partition walls, as well as adding ambient lighting and soundscapes, even if their access to Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise is suspended. However, it will not be possible to visit the archipelago if players lose access to the DLC. To be able to visit the archipelago and take on requests of designing vacation homes again, you will need to purchase the DLC separately or renew the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership."
Many fans were caught off guard by the $30 price jump from the standard Nintendo Switch Online plan to the Expansion Pack, especially if they had no plans of playing the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC. If you were planning on subscribing to the service just to get access to Happy Home Paradise and then cancel, be aware that you’ll lose access to the DLC content when you do so.
If you’re not sure if you’ll be sticking with Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack for the long haul, it might be in your best interest to just buy the Happy Home Paradise DLC for Animal Crossing: New Horizons outright. Otherwise, you may subject yourself to losing access to some of the DLC content down the line if you decide to opt out of the service.