Speaking with WayPoint during E3 2017, Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime reconfirmed that the Animal Crossing mobile game will indeed launch this year. While mobile games were not a part of Nintendo’s E3 Spotlight, the CEO affirmed the game’s development team is hard at work on it, and announcements will be made in due course.
Animal Crossing development continues quite strongly, the teams are very excited about what they have. It’s an application that is going to launch this year, as we’ve committed. And we’ll be sharing more information in due course. We believe, just as we’ve seen with Pokémon Go, just as we’ve seen with Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, we believe that the application will help broaden the user base for Animal Crossing, and it’s going to end up having a positive impact on our dedicated video game business of Animal Crossing.
With the app still on tap for this year, one would be led to believe that an accompanying Switch game would coincide with its launch. Reggie said that while E3 was focused on incoming recent releases such as Super Mario Odyssey, more unannounced content is underway, specifically saying, “we’ve got that great pace of content, and I can tell you there’s more to be announced.” Whether that means first or third party games is unclear.
The still-mysterious Animal Crossing mobile app was originally announced in May 2016, along with a Fire Emblem app and both due for release that same fiscal year. The Fiscal Year 2017 came and went with nothing, but Fire Emblem Heroes did launch on mobile in January. Animal Crossing was an expected franchise that was a no-show at E3, so stay tuned for any (if any) updates on such a game this year.
