Animal Crossing now limits time travel a bit

While controversial for some, adjusting your Nintendo Switch’s clock to fast-forward the time or day in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a tradition that stretches back since the beginning of the series. But with the game’s big winter update, fans say that Nintendo has changed what you can and can’t do while time traveling.

First, the good news: You can still time travel. What’s changed, according to many time-traveling players, is that Nintendo has tweaked — or rather, reinforced — how events work. Previously, the company announced that you would be unable to trigger big seasonal events ahead of time, because the game would actually check if your clock was correct. But, as many fans found out, Nintendo wasn’t consistent in enforcing these rules. For example, prior to this new update, you could time travel to Halloween and enjoy the festivities. A handful of recent events have worked this way as well.

No more! Polygon tested it out, and you can’t just adjust your clock to make it Turkey Day (aka Thanksgiving) anytime you’d like. Fans are reporting that you can still travel backward to events that have already transpired in the real world, but you cannot experience new content by jumping forward.

Some fans are rolling with the punches here, and aren’t bothered by Nintendo doing exactly what the company said it would do. Plus, it’s not as huge of a deal if you can still go back and enjoy things later; the only limitation is in getting there faster. Others, meanwhile, bemoan the change — because there are legitimate reasons to time travel in the first place.

“This really sucks for people with busy schedules who don’t have time to do all of the events right when they take place,” one player wrote on a Facebook group dedicated to time-traveling fans. “Especially for events like Toy Day and Turkey Day/the Harvest Festival when people are going to be spending time with their loved ones … I know you can go back and do them, but it just doesn’t feel the same. Doing them before feels a lot more festive because everyone is still exited about the event.”