Cover Photo By Vincent Yap
Cover Photo By Vincent Yap.

Embrace your inner designer with Animal Crossing “Happy Home Paradise” DLC


Just when you’ve put your copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons down after over a year of the same old gameplay, Nintendo brings players a fresh new update which allows everyone to live out their interior design dreams in a vacation island paradise.


By Dylan Kirsten Melencion | Friday, 17 December 2021

Christmas definitely came early for Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans when Nintendo released the Happy Home Paradise DLC (downloadable content) last Nov. 5. With it being the base game’s biggest and only paid expansion package to date, “Happy Home Paradise” puts players to work and their interior design skills to the test.

 

Despite its massive success during its launch in March 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons gradually became stale and tedious for a number of players, mostly due to its severe lack of content and depth. However, Happy Home Paradise is a long-awaited expansion that takes the decorating aspect of the base game to the next level. Needless to say, Happy Home Paradise could not have come at a better time.

Right from the get-go, players are whisked away to a tropical island and recruited as Happy Home Paradise salespersons, tasked with the challenge of designing vacation homes for villager clients. Enter resort developers Lottie, Wardell, and fan-favorite Niko, who welcome you as part of the Paradise Planning Team. These lovable new characters guide players through the process of bringing life to the island’s homes, often introducing new features and design elements after every certain number of houses designed. 

 

Acnh1

Once in work mode, players get to choose a client from the villagers lounging around the vacation island. Each villager comes with their own unique island home prompt, so it’s up to the players to integrate their request into the design. From woodsy Christmas homes, charming little ice cream parlors, elegant hotel lobbies, or grandeur mansions overlooking the sea, Happy Home Paradise does not hold back. 

 

Labors of love

The beauty of this expansion pack, however, lies in each player’s artistry and inventiveness. Even before all the new items that came in with New Horizons’ latest updates, the Animal Crossing community had already cemented itself as one of the most creative in the video game industry. It’s true what they say: limitation does breed creativity. 

 

With this latest expansion, however, new items such as partitions, columns, counters, accent walls, and two-floor bedrooms are introduced, offering more possibilities for beautiful, intricate interiors. The game encourages players to go one step further and look beyond the comfort of their own style of aesthetics, allowing them limitless possibilities to approach a certain space and infuse it with their character. 

 

Acnh3

 

Players continue to prove their innate ingenuity time and time again, especially now that the Animal Crossing community is alive more than ever on social media sites, all eager to share their designs with the world. Whether these designs inspire you to one-up yourself in terms of home design or make you question if you’re even playing the same game, Happy Home Paradise is an undeniable opportunity to showcase the insanely artistic minds of each player worldwide. 

 

However, despite the favorable feedback from the majority of its players, Happy Home Paradise may not be for everyone. Those who didn’t quite enjoy the slow-paced “humdrum” island life of New Horizons aren’t in for anything new here—the DLC is as much of a gradual process as its counterpart. New items, abilities, and features are only unlocked after each design is completed, and there really isn’t much else to do other than designing homes. So if you’re looking for instant gratification and exciting new content to look forward to every day, then the life of a Happy Home Paradise salesperson may not suit you. 

 

Much like New Horizons, Happy Home Paradise is intended to be enjoyed casually. Unlike many online multiplayer games nowadays, there is no heart-racing, blood-pumping action present. While it might be tempting to barrel through home after home, the same principle of playing any Animal Crossing game can be applied to this expansion: do it at your own pace. 

 

Acnh4

 

Nearly a month since it was first released, Happy Home Paradise has proven to be a wildly successful addition to the Animal Crossing universe, with its content being something players have been yearning for. This DLC will definitely get you excited about going to work this holiday season.

 

Get Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the Happy Home Paradise DLC on the Nintendo e-Shop today for $59.99 (₱3,014.29) and $24.99 (₱1,259.51), respectively.

Check out the Benildean Press Corps’ review of New Horizons here

 

Rating: 4.5/5

 

 

 

Last updated: Friday, 17 December 2021