Animal Crossing New Horizons' 3.0 update makes decorating fun for the first time

I never expected Resetti to provide the key to my creative freedom, but here we are

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which makes games with lots of decorating options — like Animal Crossing: New Horizons — a double-edged sword for me. On one hand, the game's plethora of customization options provide the ideal opportunity to build my own little world, just the way I want it. On the other hand, that world never ends up looking as perfect as it did in my head, and all it takes is one visit to another player's decadent, flawlessly composed island to make me want to tear it all down and start over.

Until recently, tearing it all down was pretty much my only choice, and one I was reluctant to pull the trigger on. Prior to New Horizons' big 3.0 update, players who were unhappy with the state of their island only had two options: Reset the island (wiping it entirely, villagers and all) to start with a clean slate, or manually remove every individual item the area they want to redecorate — a painstaking task that could take days to complete. Faced with either wiping my island of all its features and starting from scratch or spending untold amounts of time reorganizing it all, I simply took the procrastinator's route. The theme park I wanted to build on the right side of my island could wait. And wait it did, for years.

But for once, my procrastination actually paid off. As of the 3.0 update, Resetti — a mole character Nintendo initially created to yell at players who neglected to save their game before being relegated to the role of stuck-player-rescuer — has been given a new task. After updating my game to the newest version, I found Resetti wandering my island, and he presented me with an offer I couldn't refuse: Rather than wiping my entire island, Resetti offered to clean up certain parts of it, and he even left me the choice of whether the items he cleaned up would go in my recently expanded home storage, or in the garbage. (I picked storage, obviously.)

As a player whose island has so many flowers that my Switch's frame rate tanks when I run through them, this was perfect. I can finally clear out specific parts of my island without completely destroying them, and without having to move each individual plant and piece of furniture by myself. At the press of a button, my town suddenly has freed-up real-estate that's ripe for development and decoration.

And boy, have I been decorating.

Over the course of a single play session, I was able to clear out the right side of my island and set up all the theme park-themed items I've been collecting for the last six years. There's a ticketing area, food stands, a set of claw machines and arcade games, and a prize counter. Best of all, there are actual rides, as I finally have room to place the enormous merry-go-round and ferris wheel I've been hoarding in my storage unit for ages.

It's not perfect, of course, and it likely never will be. But it's far closer to what I imagined in my head than the empty field of overgrown flowers that preceded it, and the knowledge that I can change things up whenever I want — without flushing all my hard work down the drain or spending hours playing painstaking flower-Tetris — has freed my mind from the creative shackles that previously imprisoned it. Now, when I see something that inspires me, I add it to my little Animal Crossing to-do list, knowing there's actually a decent chance I’ll bring the idea to life on my island, rather than leave it gathering dust in my brain's over-crowded storage unit.