Poll: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most-anticipated Switch game

Are you interested in getting Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Well, you’re not alone — a pair of polls in Japanese media shows that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most-anticipated Nintendo Switch game in that country.

As myPotatoGames highlights (corroborated by Nintendo Soup ), Animal Crossing: New Horizons sits at the top of two polls for the most-anticipated Nintendo Switch game. With a little less than four months to go until its launch, it seems that it’s built up a pretty solid base in its home country.

A poll in Nintendo Dream has 26.6% of respondents voting for the new Animal Crossing game oni the Nintendo Switch with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 in a distant second at 15.6%. Here are the full results of the Nintendo Dream poll:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch) – 26.6%
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 (Nintendo Switch) – 15.6%
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (Nintendo Switch) – 12.8%
Rune Factory 5 (Nintendo Switch) – 6.9%
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix (Nintendo Switch) – 6.6%
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch) – 5.9%
Story of Seasons Series New Work (Nintendo Switch) – 5.2%
TRIALS of MANA (Nintendo Switch) – 4.8%
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition (Nintendo Switch) – 4.5%
Inazuma Eleven Eiyuu Tachi no Great Road (Nintendo Switch) – 3.8%

Similarly, a poll from Famitsu (pretty much one of the biggest gaming magazines in Japan) also has Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the top of the list with 508 votes, well ahead of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 which is also in second place with 292 votes. Here are the results of the recent Famitsu poll:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch) – 508
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 (Nintendo Switch) – 292
Bayonetta 3 (Nintendo Switch) – 278
Shin Megami Tensei V (Nintendo Switch) – 231
Ushiro (Nintendo Switch) – 205
Rune Factory 5 (Nintendo Switch) – 184
SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays (Nintendo Switch) – 133
TRIALS of MANA (Nintendo Switch) – 131
Momotaro Dentetsu ～Showa Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban!～ (Nintendo Switch) – 111
Yo-kai Watch 4++ (Nintendo Switch) – 92

Bear in mind, popularity in Japan might not correlate to popularity in the West. The last mainline game in the franchise was 2012’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf which had sold 11.78 million units as of June 30, 2018, making it the most popular game in the franchise to date. Still, that was for the 3Ds and not the Nintendo Switch.

So, will Animal Crossing: New Horizons be able to live up to the expectations of Japanese gamers? Probably, although it remains to be seen whether or not this latest game in the franchise will be just as successful in the West.