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Animal Crossing is the next Nintendo franchise to get the Lego treatment

Nintendo revealed that Animal Crossing will be its next franchise to get transformed into a Lego set, following sets based on Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. This collaboration was teased Thursday morning in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Nintendo.

Welcome to…LEGO Animal Crossing!#AnimalCrossing #LEGO #Nintendo pic.twitter.com/A0XRzwVikh

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) October 5, 2023

The teaser features Lego versions of Tom Nook, Isabelle, Kapp’n, Rosie, Bunnie, Marshal, Julian, and Fauna standing in front of a bunch of Lego trees as they watch a balloon with a present float in the air. It’s only 11 seconds long, but it’s instantly recognizable and relatable to anyone who played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the game that took Nintendo’s long-running life sim series mainstream in 2020.

Besides this teaser, we haven’t learned anything more about Lego Animal Crossing. That means we don’t know if it’ll be as comprehensive as Lego’s Super Mario Bros. collaboration, which lets players build entire courses, in addition to Mario and Donkey Kong characters, with Lego. This all comes from a partnership between the two companies that began in 2020, with Nintendo’s Takashi Tezuka saying at the time that he “always liked Lego products and how they help children use their imagination to play.”

We don’t know when any of these Lego Animal Crossing products will launch, so we’ll have to wait to hear more about this from Lego and Nintendo. Regardless of when it happens, the idea of building out your own Animal Crossing island with Lego and populating it with little figures is a fantastic idea, so it makes sense that this collaboration happened.

Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Lego’s Animal Crossing sets are every bit as adorable as the games
All of the Lego Animal Crossing sets interconnected.

Lego and Nintendo finally revealed more details on the Lego Animal Crossing collaboration first teased next week. We got a look at five distinct Lego sets that can fit together and even know when they'll hit store shelves.

Unlike the Super Mario Bros. collaboration, these are five Lego sets with an Animal Crossing theme. First, there's the 389-piece Isabelle's House Visit set ($40), which comes with Isabelle and Fauna and lets players build Fauna's house, craft tools, and pop the balloon present. The Julian's Birthday Party set has 170 pieces, costs $15, and it comes with the titular character, whom people can build a birthday party for using the pieces. There's also the $20, 164-piece Bunnie's Outdoor Activities set, which comes with its titular character, a tent, and a river that feeds into a cliff and waterfall.
Those looking for something a bit more complex might want to go for the Kapp'n's Island Boat Tour set, which costs $30, comes with 233 pieces, includes figures for Kapp'n and Marshal, and lets players build Kapp'n's boat and a tropical island setting. Finally, the most complex of these initial sets is the 535-piece Nook's Cranny & Rosies House. Priced at $75, this set comes with Toom Nook and Rosie and lets people build the series' iconic store and Rosie's house.
All of these sets are fairly distinct from each other, but the press release revealing them confirms that the sets can all be connected together, letting people build one big Lego Animal Crossing village or island. That will be possible when all of these sets hit store shelves at the same time on March 1, 2024.

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Nintendo is shutting down online services for 3DS and Wii U next April
Mega Man and Mario fight in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U,

Nintendo confirmed it will widely shut down online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games in April 2024, which will be just over a year after it discontinued the Nintendo eShop on those systems.
This deactivation of most of the online services for those platforms was revealed on X (formerly Twitter) and Nintendo's support site early Wednesday. "In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution," the message says. "We will announce a specific end date and time at a later date. Please note that if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned. We sincerely thank players for using the online services of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software over a long period of time and apologize for any inconvenience."
Essentially, this means that after April 2024, you won't be able to use any online features in things like 3DS Pokémon games or Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U anymore. Nintendo does say in the Q&A section of its support article that people will still be able to play games offline and redownload updates and games from the Nintendo eShop for the foreseeable future. Pokémon Bank will remain unaffected, so it'll still be possible to transfer Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire all of the way to Pokémon Home. However, SpotPass support and other online-focused applications like Nintendo Badge Arcade will stop working entirely.

Just like the Wii U and 3DS eShop closure that caused a ruckus earlier this year, this move is a blow to game preservation and will forever harm some games not available anywhere else. While it's understandable that Nintendo might want to move on from these systems' dated online infrastructure, it's still a disappointing move for those of us who spent a lot of time playing games offline and online on these systems.

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Mario vs. Donkey Kong is getting a Nintendo Switch remake in February
Mario jumping towards Donkey Kong in Mario vs Donkey Kong for the Switch.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong was announced during today's Nintendo Direct. Launching on February 16, this new title is the first entry in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series to hit the Nintendo Switch and the latest in the series since its last entry in 2016.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong - Nintendo Direct 9.14.2023

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