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(Image: Nintendo)

During the recent E3 Nintendo Direct it was revealed that fans will have to wait a little longer than the initial 2019 release window promised for the new Animal Crossing game. Unfortunately, Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch has been delayed to March 20th, 2020.

Now, Nintendo have revealed that they pushed New Horizons back because it would be a ‘disservice’ to fans if they were to release a rushed and unfinished product, and a greater strain on their own employees too.

Senior director of corporate communications for Nintendo Charlie Scibetta recently elaborated in an interview with TechCrunch. He stated:

‘We’re not going to put a game out before we think it’s ready to be enjoyed by fans. In the case of a franchise like Animal Crossing that has so many loyal fans, we’d be doing them a disservice if we put out a product that was rushed.’

Animal Crossing: New Horizons will now release on the 20th of March 2020. A Q1 2020 release date suggests that there may still be a lot left to do in the development cycle for New Horizons. The exciting E3 trailer showcased that Nintendo will be taking the franchise in a different direction, one which hands the player complete control over the development of a deserted island.

This new expansive approach is bound to require a lot of hard work from the development team, hence the decision to push back the release date. Scibetta went on to confirm this by saying:

‘We think moving to March 20 of next year was the right decision because we needed to give the development team enough time to make it the game we want to make.’

Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser also had something to add, explaining in an interview with IGN how he didn’t want to put undue stress on employees by making them overwork to meet an impossible deadline:

‘For us, one of our key tenets is that we bring smiles to people's faces, and we talk about that all the time. For us, that applies to our own employees. We need to make sure that our employees have good work-life balance.’

(Image: Nintendo)

The video game industry is well known for putting its employees through ‘crunch’ scenarios; making employees work 100+ hour weeks (often for little or no additional pay) to ensure that a game meets a given deadline. It’s refreshing to see that Nintendo rejects this harmful philosophy.

Ultimately, Nintendo is known to deliver game experiences with the highest quality in mind. Metroid Prime 4 recently faced a huge development reboot, where production was halted and then completely restarted because Nintendo didn’t think the game met their high standards of quality.

With Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the developers have eluded to the fact that there are still a lot of new things they want to add to the game. This despite the exciting addition of crafting, deeper fishing mechanics and more control over the world.

With well cared for employees full of exciting ideas and the space to implement them, New Horizons is set to be the biggest and most exciting instalment in the Animal Crossing franchise to date.

Stay tuned to Daily Star Gaming for more Animal Crossing: New Horizons news as it’s released.