Bugs can be powerful things in gaming, but nowhere has this proven more true than in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This week, update 1.2 dropped for New Horizons, slashing interest rates on your savings account into the bargain. According to Animal Crossing dataminer Ninji, Nintendo has been fiddling with bug spawn rates in this update too.
What's happened to bugs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
Ninji says that spawn rates for all of the game's bugs have been unified in update 1.2. The examples Ninji gives are the agrias butterfly and the wharf roach. The former had a higher spawn rate in April, whereas the latter was more common in March. This has been flattened so that these bugs are no more common in one month than another. Naturally, this affects a whole lot more bugs than just those two. Scorpions and tarantulas - perhaps two of the biggest earners for Animal Crossing: New Horizons players - are now "significantly" less common.
so, how about the insect nerfs in #ACNH 1.2
— Ninji 🇪🇺🏴🇬🇮 (@_Ninji) April 24, 2020
first, spawn rates have been unified for all insects
e.g. agrias butterfly used to be less common in April than in its other available months. wharf roach had a higher rate in March.
that’s all gone now#ACdatamining #ACspoilers
Ninji says that other bugs have been affected too. Butterflies, stinkbugs, and beetles have all had their spawn rates massively adjusted, leading to increased or decreased spawns. If you want to check out the full data table for the bug spawn rate changes, you can do so right here. It looks like Nintendo wants to crack down on Animal Crossing: New Horizons players making mad bells from bug-catching endeavors.
If you're interested in learning more from Ninji's datamines, there's also some interesting stuff on their Twitter feed about unused content in update 1.2. You can grab Animal Crossing: New Horizons right now on Nintendo Switch.
Will you be sad to see your bug-catching business go under? Let us know in the comments below!