Time travelers won’t be able to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons events

Animal Crossing: New Horizons update 1.1.0’s changelog includes an item that allows discovering how Nintendo will combat the so-called time travelers.

Time travelers are those players who choose to move the time and date of their consoles to have a look at timed events before they are supposed to be available for everyone.

As detailed in the changelog, translated from Japanese on Reddit, Nintendo has made it so that players will be required an Internet connection before they can even access those events, in particular Bunny Day. This Easter-themed event is set to go live between April 1 and 12.

Players will have to stick to real-time and date, and won’t be able to custom set them via the operating system of the console.

While it’s impossible to say whether dataminers will find ways to get through this, and still spoil content from the events and the updates, that should be enough for time travelers, an issue the Animal Crossing series has always had to face through multiple iterations.

“Time travelers whose system is set to those dates will NOT be allowed to experience those events until it is actually that time IRL,” mentions the changelog.

“An Internet connection will be required to check the real date when the event first starts on 4/1, after which the event can be enjoyed with no Internet connection. Also worth noting that the user playing must have a connected Nintendo account when this check is performed.”

The first in-game event will be Bunny Day, an annual event held in the franchise’s games, which usually lets players collect colored eggs by shaking trees, digging holes, breaking rocks, or gardening events. These eggs were to be delivered to Zapper in exchange for special Easter-themed furniture items. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ update 1.1.0 is also introducing a special furniture item that will let you have a custom Nintendo Switch console at your home.