Several players have reported their Animal Crossing posters removed from the Nook Shopping catalog after the game’s Halloween update. Some players are questioning Nintendo’s move, especially in light of its announcement that an Amiibo cards restock is coming.
More details on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Halloween update were revealed yesterday. Many new features and a teaser for the return of two fan-favorite NPCs were promised in a new trailer, and that update has now gone live. Unfortunately, the update contained a nasty surprise: many players discovered that some posters had been removed from the catalog.
Why were the Animal Crossing posters removed?
Typically, Nintendo only removes hacked items from Animal Crossing with an update; it did exactly that with the Halloween Update. However, this update also saw legitimately-acquired Animal Crossing posters removed, leading some players to question their motivations. Any remaining posters don’t even show up in the Nook Shopping catalog unless the player manually searches for “poster.”
If you’re not familiar with the game’s mechanics, “cataloging” (or “touch trading”) refers to a mechanic where players can pick up items and have that item permanently added to their Nook Shopping catalog. Dedicated gamers will even host catalog parties to expand the number of purchasable items for everyone who participates.
One of the furniture items that could be cataloged is the “poster.” Most of the game’s NPCs have a poster which can be acquired by snapping a photo of a villager at Harv’s Island. Alternatively, players can scan an Amiibo or Amiibo card to acquire a poster. Previously, these posters could be cataloged and players could buy them from Nook Shopping without having fulfilled this requirement.
Naturally, many players traded posters to expand their collections. Now, several Animal Crossing fans on Reddit and Twitter reported that posters acquired through cataloging have been removed from the available items, although the posters acquired through taking photos at Harv’s Island or using Amiibo remain.
so apparently you cant catalogue posters anymoregood fuckin job nintendo #AnimalCrossing #ACNH #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/mcHPPP5e53
— Riri ♡ (@fifichata2015) September 30, 2020
That leads us to one question: why were the Animal Crossing posters removed? Several people on social media highlight the fact that Nintendo recently announced that a restock of Amiibo cards would be coming soon. That has made some fans present a rather cynical take on the matter: they allege that Nintendo removed the cataloged posters in order to drive sales of Amiibo cards.
Whatever the truth may be, a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons players lost some content that likely took a lot of work and socializing to acquire. Any posters that were acquired through Harv’s Island photos or Amiibo are safe, but players might have a hard time getting posters of the most popular Animal Crossing characters without spending real-world money on Amiibo cards.
