One box, six possible designs — and no say in which one ends up on your shelf.
RE-MENT, the Japanese toy maker, has announced “Animal Crossing Happy Room 2,” an all-new wave of blind box figures due in November of this year. Pricing sits at 1650 JPY per box (about $10), and true to the blind box formula, the purchase is a gamble: the pool is public, the pull is not.
The company made its reputation on miniatures detailed to an almost obsessive degree, so there’s no sense of a licence being cashed in here. Designs draw on well-known faces from the game together with the spots they frequent, both homes and shops.
If RNG isn’t your thing, there’s a way out
The randomness is optional. A full six box set is being offered as well, so collectors chasing every design won’t have to work through 14 boxes only to wind up with five copies of one room.
It’s the practical choice, sure — and the dull one, because half the fun is tearing into the box and seeing what turned up.
This is a sequel, and the first one set the template
The title spells out the lineage. Animal Crossing: Happy Room 1 gave us Timmy & Tommy in Nook’s Cranny, Isabelle at Resident Services and Brewster in The Roost, alongside the rooms belonging to Marshal, Bob and Whitney.
A decent range: two shopkeepers, a service desk, the resident barista and a trio of villager bedrooms. The second round sticks to that formula with six new designs.
Nintendo keeps feeding the game years later
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has become an evergreen title in Nintendo’s catalogue, and players are still watching for whatever comes next. Nintendo has kept the supply going through crossovers with other big franchises and physical merchandise people actually want to own.
The latest of those landed alongside Splatoon Raiders, a tie-in that handed out themed furniture for your island’s buildings via an amiibo. The pendulum now swings back to physical goods.
What’s next for the games is anyone’s guess
As for where the series goes next, Nintendo isn’t saying. The 3.0 update injected a fresh dose of energy and ought to keep players occupied in the meantime.
Still, it’s hard to imagine nothing is stirring behind closed doors by now. For the moment, though, the biggest development is a $10 box whose contents you can’t see.