Dataminer Ninji has discovered a whole host of new content hiding in the deepest, darkest recesses of Animal Crossing: New Horizons' code, some of which could potentially point to upcoming features.

A list of the exciting new features appears below (thanks, Nintendo Everything), but be warned – while not all of these elements may actually make it into the final game, there's the potential you could have some of your enjoyment ruined by reading on – so do so at your own risk.

Still here? OK, let's begin.

Two extra museum upgrades are mentioned

All three house levels (after the tent) appear to contain an art section

Two new stand-alone buildings are mentioned: the museum shop, and the museum cafe – the latter of which incorporates a Gyroid section

Redd appears to have a ship which will dock on the ‘secret beach’ at the north of the island

The ‘fake art’ mechanic will make a return

The code that pops up a “select an item” box (to gift a villager, to sell, to swap a fish out for, and so on) has a “cTunekichi” (Redd) option – more evidence that he's perhaps coming back

Bushes are mentioned: azalea, hibiscus, holly, hydrangea, camellia, osmanthus (although those might change; the list actually changed between version 1.0.0 and 1.1.4)

Vegetables which can be grown are mentioned: tomato, wheat, sugar cane, potato, carrot, pumpkin

Update 1.0.0 has a file for a “Seafood” Critterpedia page that’s supposed to contain 33 items – the only one actually in the released game is the manila clam

There’s a third Nook’s Cranny upgrade referenced

Swimming is mentioned; diving will allow you to obtain fish (a different set from fishing) and seaweed – there’s a portion of the save file reserved to store them already

There are unused shopping interfaces in the game: ‘cGardening’, ‘cMuseum’ (possibly the aforementioned museum shop), ‘cRealEstate’, ‘cGallery’

There’s a function that stores a ‘play report’ (Nintendo’s aggregate stats on gameplay) with three variants: get_recipe_diy, get_recipe_clothing, get_recipe_cooking – only the DIY one is actually ever used, so the other two might be in the plans

Some mentions of stuff here have been removed from 1.1 onwards; the list mentioning ‘FlowerBush’ and vegetable names has been modified to list ‘FlBu, V0, V1, V2, …’ instead, one mention of Redd’s shop has gone from ‘TsunekichiShop’ to ‘TShop’ – ‘TShop’ is in what seems to be a list of doors that buildings can have

Since 1.1 they’ve added ‘WOffice’ as well, which isn’t actually used yet

There’s a list of types for items where every type is used in the game, except for “Art” and “Dishes"

Phew! It's worth stressing a second time that a lot of the stuff mentioned here may never happen in the game and could simply be left-over code for features that won't be used, but at least some of it has a good chance of coming to pass. Is there a feature in there you're particularly excited about? Let us know with a comment.