The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct revealed a lot of goodies for fans of the series (Brewster, Kapp’n, and an entirely new paid DLC fashioned after Happy Home Designer not least of all), but the slightly smaller surprise that stole the show was the reintroduction of Gyroids. Originally in the Gamecube version, the Gyroids are a group of terracotta-looking creatures that players can find buried in the ground and then place in their houses as a furniture piece. When turned on, they activate and begin to gyrate, as it were, making different musical sounds as they do.
This reintroduction is a wonderful callback to the previous Animal Crossing entries and with an abundance to collect and show off, it is a much larger addition than it may seem from the trailer. Gyroids have served as a sort of low-key mascot for the series, and have been referenced throughout Nintendo’s history, from Smash Bros. to the Nintendo version of Monopoly. It's great to see them return as a staple, as their many interesting beeps and buzzes gave Animal Crossing a strange and unique atmosphere.
Among the other small but significant update additions like cooking and farming, Gyroids are a complex collectible type that adds an entirely new aspect of gameplay. There are many things to do with Gyroids in the previous games such as collecting, trading, and selling, and new players to the Switch version may not know what to expect. Fans of the series may not know their history or what their addition to New Horizons means. There is a large amount of history and there was only a small amount of the Direct devoted to how to find them, so a full explanation is in order.
Gyroids are fashioned after early Japanese artifacts and are named Haniwa in Japanese. They have been part of the series since 2003 (as shown by ontariodrome InThisBigCity on YouTube) and were present in every entry as a collectible up until New Horizons. In the Gamecube version, one of the first things the housing loan giant himself, Tom Nook, gives the player after selling them a house is a Gyroid – he then talks about how it works and what it does, showing how important these beings are to the game. They introduce a lot of core concepts, including decorating rooms, collecting objects around the town, and receiving gifts for chores done for villagers.
Gyroids returned in the DS, 3DS, and Wii versions of the game as both furniture items and as Lloid, a helper who runs many different services such as donations and saving the game. There are over 100 different Gyroids to collect in New Leaf alone, with each one having its own distinct sound. Up until now, though, Gyroids have not been in Animal Crossing: New Horizons beyond Lloid being present at each construction site (and Coco resembling one quite closely). Lloid simply takes Bells for island upgrades like bridges and stairs, and while it was good to have a callback to the gyroids, many fans wondered why they weren’t collectible like in previous games. This addition finally makes New Horizons a more definitive version of the previous games – without Gyroids, the game didn’t feel quite complete as an Animal Crossing experience.
Gyroids work slightly differently in New Horizons. Whereas players dig up a complete one after a rainy or snowy day in the Gamecube game or New Leaf, the Direct outlines a system that is similar to gardening. Gyroids are now found in fragments buried on the island, and once they are dug up, bury it and water it with a watering can. The next day, dig up the fragment and it will have turned into a fully-grown random Gyroid, ready to be placed, customized, and activated.
Once grown, New Horizons 2.0 Update Direct states that more will be found similar to how they were found in New Leaf. If it rains on the island, the next day some of the buried items might be full Gyroids instead of fragments. Whether or not Gyroids will be sold at Nook’s Cranny or be attainable through Nook Miles has not been confirmed yet, but the addition of Brewster may signal more ways to obtain them than just growing them, like in the 3DS game.
From the looks in the trailer, Gyroids are much smaller than in previous games and can be put on shelves, tables, and outside to give players’ town a more unique musical aura. This change is crucial as gyroids now do not take up full spaces and can instead be used as decorative additions to any complete Animal Crossing house design concept. While there is yet to be a complete list of Gyroids, each one makes a different sound, meaning that mixing, matching, collecting, and customizing will likely be an integral part of many people’s themes and aesthetics for their island.
Many of the original Gyroids are percussive and sound like drums, meaning that they are better at producing soundscapes than specific melodies. They come in all different varieties, with some beeping, buzzing, drilling, and zapping. If, for example, a player wanted an Asian garden to have natural sounds, they might use a Croakoid to mimic a frog sound or a Percoloid to mimic a tree trunk getting hit. Every style of room will likely benefit from a Gyroid, and each Gyroid should pair well with K.K. Slider’s large collection of songs. One thing that’s often overlooked about these creatures is their internal timer, and when they are activated, the sound loops forever until it is turned off. Because of this, players with limited resources or cheaper design ideas can use staggered sounds and still make them sound different from other players who've found or traded for more Gyroids.
Trading and collecting Gyroids was critical to giving players more creative agency. Although their inclusion in New Horizons took a while to get, their addition is absolutely welcome. Listening to music performed by K.K. and hitting the A button next to a piano was great, but sound and music had a much larger role in earlier titles, and New Horizons' new customization features didn’t quite fill the gap Gyroids left.
There are still a few mysteries remaining regarding Gyroids that will most likely be answered when the update comes out. Will there be a limit on how many Gyroids are allowed in a room or outside? Will Brewster still hand them out like he did in New Leaf? And will they be available in New Horizons DLC to give villagers’ vacation homes some instrumentation? For now, players are left to speculate, but the promise of being able to grow a garden full of musical toys is exciting. Gyroids may seem unassuming but their additions to the legacy of the franchise and the gameplay of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is not to be overlooked.
Source: Nintendo/YouTube, ontariodrome InThisBigCity/YouTube
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