This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is easily the most expansive game in the franchise to date, though there are a number of regulars from previous entries that are still missing. Chief among them are Brewster, the café-owning pigeon, and dodgy art dealer Crazy Redd. Some characters within the game have already hinted at their return, but dataminer Ninji appears to have fouund more evidence of their potential inclusion.

Needless to say, if you don’t want any future updates to be spoiled for you, it’s best not to read on. Why not check out a few tips and tricks you may have missed instead?

Still here? Well, hidden in the game’s code is references to the following:

Two extra museum upgrades, with all three (post tent) containing an art section.
Two standalone buildings; a Museum Shop and a Museum Café, the latter of which contains a Gyroid section.
Redd will apparently have a ship that docks at the ‘secret beach’ on the north part of the island. That particular acre shares Redd’s name in the Japanese version of the game. The fake art mechanic will also reportedly make a return. You may well be able to give Redd items too, and there’s also an unused item type for Art listed.
Bushes look like they’re making a return, with the list including azalea, hibiscus, holly, hydrangea, camelia and osmathus, though that list has apparently changed between Version 1.0.0 of the game and version 1.1.4.
Vegetables including tomatoes, wheat, sugar cane, potatoes, carrots and pumpkins which can be grown and picked. There’s also reference to cooking recipes within the code, and another unused item type for ‘Dishes’.
Diving - a feature introduced in New Leaf - is also mentioned, with new fish and seaweed obtainable that can’t be caught through fishing. There’s also mention of more bait aside from Manila Clams.
There’s also a reference to another upgrade for Nook’s Cranny, though without any mention of what that would entail. Although the datamine has also unearthed unused shopping interfaces for Gardening, Museum, Real Estate and Gallery, so it’s possible they could show up in a further Nook’s Cranny upgrade.

There’s a couple of other little bits that may or may not hint at other updates too. Needless to say, the existence of these things hasn’t been officially confirmed, and they could well just be leftover bits of code for ideas that were abandoned during development - it doesn’t mean that they’ll be making an appearance in the future.

Still though, there’s some exciting stuff in there! What do you think? Let us know down in the comments!

Source: Nintendo Everything