Fans of Animal Crossing: New Horizons likely know the tedium and joy that comes with assembling an aquarium of their own and fishing season after season, but the fun doesn’t have to stop in the game. Nintendo announced that the company will be bringing its Animal Crossing: New Horizons aquarium tour nationwide on Monday. The event started with a partnership between Nintendo and the Seattle Aquarium that brought specially themed Animal Crossing exhibits to the aquarium. In June Nintendo announced that it would be expanding the event and tour several locations across the United States.
Animal Crossing’s aquarium experience is going on tour — here’s how it works
Time to learn about some fish
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Image: Nintendo EDP/Nintendo
Ana Diaz (she/her) is a culture writer at Polygon, covering internet culture, fandom, and video games. Her work has previously appeared at NPR, Wired, and The Verge.
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Aquarium Tour will come to eight U.S. cities in total. It includes a nice spread of events across several regions. Here are all the locations and dates for each aquarium Nintendo has announced so far:
- Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — June 14-Aug. 11
- Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans, Louisiana — June 21-Sept. 14
- Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia — Aug. 1-Sept. 26
- Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon — Aug. 26-Oct. 20
- New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts — Sept. 21-Dec. 14
- Sea Life Arizona in Tempe, Arizona — Oct. 4-Nov. 17
- Sea Life Kansas City Aquarium — Nov. 1-Dec. 19
- Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee — Dec. 21-Feb. 28
The official FAQ on the event describes the tour as an “aquarium experience inspired by the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game.” The participating aquariums will host events “and more with an Animal Crossing twist.” However if you want to get a stronger idea of what the official Animal Crossing aquarium experience could actually be like, it’s helpful to look at the aquarium tour hosted at the Seattle Aquarium.
A TikTok video from the user May showed what it was like to attend the event. The aquarium had giant Animal Crossing-themed backdrops to take photos. Visitors can look for cutouts of characters like Isabelle and Tom Nook in the aquarium, and get a card stamped as they find each character. Exhibits within the aquarium contain additional placards courtesy of Blathers, who will teach fans more about the fish they have caught in the game. Additionally, it looks like the event at the Seattle Aquarium contained adorable merch as well. If you want to see more, you can see the full video below.
Overall, it doesn’t look like anything overly fancy, but it doesn’t really need to be. The aquarium is already pretty dang fun — even without Tom Nook there — and it looks like the event could be the perfect excuse for an Animal Crossing fan to go and see some cool critters and fish.
Update (Nov. 21): This article was updated to include new tour dates added to the event series.
