Animal Crossing: New Horizons Got a Nice Quality-of-Life Tweak for Custom Design Fans

If you've gone hunting for neat custom designs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you've probably ended up searching through Twitter, Reddit, or even a purpose-built website. Now, thanks to a tiny quality-of-life update in the latest patch, there shouldn't be as much need for that anymore.

Today's new version 1.4 patch for New Horizons, the second of its summer updates, is mostly dedicated to fireworks, dream islands, and the much-needed addition of an island save data backup service. For folks who like using custom designs to spruce up their islands or spice up their wardrobes, though, the nicest additions may be the new options for browsing through designs and following creators.

Now, when players go to the custom design portal in Able Sisters or while visiting a dream island, they'll be able to search through designs by name or by type. Find a design you like? It's now possible to make a list of favorite creators in the portal too, which should be especially useful for folks trying to import a large custom tileset to decorate their islands.

Using custom design browsers on fan sites like Nook's Island may still be easier or preferable in some cases, but it'll be nice not having to punch in a 12-character code every time a new design catches your eye.

If custom designs, fireworks, and dream islands aren't up your alley, don't worry: it looks like Nintendo won't be slowing down with the big Animal Crossing patches any time soon. Early datamining efforts on 1.4 version suggest that there are some pretty substantial features in the works for future updates. New Horizons may get farming and cooking, making it that much more of an all-consuming life sim (in a good way, of course).