Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was released in 2017 on all mobile devices. In this rendition, players are put in charge of running a campsite and making it the next big destination.
What is Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp?
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is the app edition of the popular series. As a campsite manager, the player is tasked with making sure their campsite is the best campsite to visit.
With over 10,000 items, players have free reign to customize their spaces to their hearts’ content. Players can also partake in monthly and seasonal events to earn exclusive items.
As players build up their spaces, they can come across visitors who you can befriend by running errands. If players raise their friendship levels high enough, the option to invite the companion arises once the player crafts a specific set of items that appeal to that companion.
Depending on the friends the player makes, amenities become available to craft. These amenities unlock more friendship levels and allow players to upgrade their amenities to cooler items.
Items to unlock these upgrades can be received by doing errands for friends of the same amenity type. For example, if the player wants to upgrade their cute amenity, they would run errands for their friends who prefer the cute archetype. Players can check their friend’s bio to see what archetype they prefer. An icon will also pop up near the friend’s name in certain menus.
The Changes
The main change is that players will not be able to pay for exclusive content. New and old players can cycle through the past 7 years of events, holidays, and tournaments.
This offline version comes with a little less than a year of new events. At launch, the game will run a new event until January, when an old event will start. After that, the game will alternate between new and old events until October 2025. After the October 2025 event, the game will be set in stone.
There will be no need for in-game purchases since everything will be available in this version. Players will have access to the items veteran players obtained through the game’s paid monthly subscription, Pocket Camp Club. It’s unknown how players can obtain these items, but I think it may be locked behind achievements or a quest line.
Players will no longer be able to sell their items via the in-game marketplace, and they will also be unable to freely send and receive gifts. However, visiting friends can now only be done at a specific area where you can listen to K.K. jam, exchange gifts, or queue up for a minigame.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete Release Date
The online app is set to cease operation on November 28, 2024. The offline edition will be released on December 3, 2024. This offline version will cost $10 until January 31, 2025. Any time after that, the game will cost $20.
Players of the free mobile app can transfer their game data to this new app after purchase. They have until June 1, 2025, to make the transfer with their Nintendo IDs and prevent the loss of their campsites.
Is It Worth Playing?
That depends. I played this game at launch for a few months before it devoured my phone storage and turned my phone into a furnace. If you have a device where you can comfortably run the app without worries of overexerting your device and storage, I’d say yes.
The game will cycle through the last 7 years of content, so if you’re a new player, that’s 7 years of content for $10. It’s a steal, considering Animal Crossing: New Horizons was $60 and promised years of new content only to stop a year later after the Happy Home Paradise DLC release in 2021.Â
However, if you’re like me when I first played, no. Don’t burn your phone into the ground. I’m sure Nintendo is working on the next mainline Animal Crossing game.
Speaking of cozy games, we have a Discord server where we hang out and chill, with cozy game night every Sunday.
