It’s been a long time since the last proper Nintendo Direct, but the drought is almost over. Nintendo revealed the date of its next video presentation, which centers around Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Here are all the details on the upcoming Direct.
When is the Nintendo Direct?
The Direct goes live at 6 a.m. PT on February 20. It is roughly 25-minutes long, which is a little shorter than usual for Nintendo’s presentations.
How can you watch the Direct?
As is the case with most Directs, the presentation should be available to livestream through Nintendo’s YouTube channel. The videos typically broadcast live and can be rewatched immediately afterward.
What is the Direct about?
Nintendo billed this presentation as an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct specifically, so it’s not clear if any other games will get a mention. The short run time is a little more in line with Nintendo’s game-specific Directs, which it tends to do before one of its flagship games launches.
Details about the game have been slowly trickling out for months, but there hasn’t been a big dump of information on the game since E3 2019 in June. Nintendo promises an in-depth look at the game, which launches March 20, one month after the Direct airs. The video package will hopefully shed some more light on the game’s lack of cloud save data, which left fans scratching their heads over the past few weeks.
It’ll be interesting to see if Nintendo mentions the new special-edition Animal Crossing Switch, which recently saw a delay in Japan due to the coronavirus outbreak. Fans are clamoring for the console’s pastel Joy-Cons and custom dock to get individual releases without the need to buy a whole console. The Direct would be a good time to see if Nintendo fulfills those wishes.
When was the last Nintendo Direct?
Nintendo’s last full-blown Direct was on September 4, 2019. The presentation covered a wide range of games, including Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Pokemon Sword and Shield. Since then, Nintendo has remained relatively quiet about its upcoming games. Fans are used to new Directs every few months, so the gap in presentations is noticeable.
The Animal Crossing-centric nature of the Direct might still be disappointing for fans hoping to get an update on Nintendo’s 2020 calendar, which currently looks sparse beyond New Horizons.
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