Nintendo is shutting down its Animal Crossing mobile game

Back in the mid-2010s, Nintendo started investing heavily in mobile games, starting with Miitomo and subsequently releasing a host of games based on its IPs. It even released an Animal Crossing game for mobile, and now, Nintendo is shutting it down. 

Nintendo has announced that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be shutting down later this year, with all online services – which every aspect of the game relies on – being pulled offline on November 28, 2024. The news comes courtesy of a tweet on the official Pocket Camp Twitter account, where the company apologized for the shutdown and promised new content would keep coming until the end date. 

“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who has supported the title since service began,” the message reads. “We will continue to hold events and add items until the service-end date.” 

In an FAQ on the Pocket Camp website, Nintendo confirmed that the game, as it stands, will no longer be playable after November 28, but it’s not all bad news — the company is also developing an offline version of the app. This version won’t have any online connectivity, with Leaf Tickets, Pocket Camp Club, and multiplayer features all being scrapped. 

Pocket Camp’s offline app will allow you to transfer your save data from the main app, where Nintendo says “the basic gameplay and controls will be the same as Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.” This app will also be available via a one-off payment, with no microtransactions or subscriptions involved, although the buy-in price is not yet known. More details will be available in October. 

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp launched on Android and iOS on November 21, 2017 to mixed reviews. It was criticized for being a little bit barebones at launch, but it quickly bulked up with subsequent updates. While it was never exactly huge, it got an uptick in players when Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released in 2020. 

The shutdown leaves just one game in Nintendo’s mobile lineup in active development, Pikmin Bloom, after every other game was either shut down or isn’t getting any new content. There is still Pokémon Go, too, handled by The Pokémon Company and developer Niantic, and that’s going… fine. New features were teased at the 2024 Pokémon World Championships closing ceremony, with Dynamax hinted to be coming soon.