Animal Crossing: New Horizons has unleashed its latest update, bringing a whole load of underwater fun to proceedings, as well as introducing sea creatures and mermaid furniture.
And as an added bonus characters can now go swimming within the game – although you’ll need to take a few additional steps before you can take to the water.
So just how do you go swimming in New Horizons and what else does the Summer Wave 1 update allow you to do?
Here’s what you need to know…
How do you swim in Animal Crossing?
First of all you have to download the update and start the game, at which point Isabelle will inform you that the seas around the island have been declared fit for swimming.
When you leave your house, you’ll find you’ve got a special gift of a snorkel and mask sent from Nintendo – but what you also need is a wet suit.
You can buy one straight away by visiting Nook’s Cranny and looking in the cabinet, where you’ll find a horizontal-striped wetsuit for 3,000 bells – although you can also order one at the Nook Stop machine, which will take a day to arrive.
In order to actually swim, you first have to get changed outside, where you’ll probably also want to take off your shoes and socks and other extra items.
To get in the water you simply need to press the ‘A’ button when you’re at the water’s edge. But if you want to do a flip into the water than take a run up and press ‘A’ just before you get to the edge.
You can even jump in the water from a cliff edge, which is pretty cool if you go to the highest point on the island and jump from there.
To swim around just press ‘A’ but if you keep tapping the button you’ll go faster. To dive you just press ‘Y’, where you’ll have a few seconds to swim around on the bottom, still by pressing ‘A’.
What sea creatures can you catch in New Horizons?
There are 40 creatures you can collect in the new update, according to Critterpedia – although some are only available at certain times of the day.
Here’s what you can expect to be able to catch:
- Abalone
- Acorn barnacle
- Chambered nautilus
- Dungeness crab
- Firefly squid
- Flatworm
- Gazami crab
- Giant isopod
- Gigas giant clam
- Horseshoe crab
- Lobster
- Mantis shrimp
- Moon jellyfish
- Mussel
- Octopus
- Oyster
- Pearl oyster
- Red king crab
- Scallop
- Seaweed
- Seagrapes
- Sea cucumber
- Sea urchin
- Sea pig
- Sea pineapple
- Sea star
- Sea slug
- Sea anemone
- Slate pencil urchin
- Snow crab
- Spider crab
- Spiny lobster
- Spotted garden eel
- Sweet shrimp
- Tiger prawn
- Turban shell
- Umbrella octopus
- Vampire squid
- Venus’ flower basket
- Whelk
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