Animal Crossing: New Leaf PC recomp shows a reworked UI and a rewritten renderer

News

The work-in-progress native PC version of the 3DS life sim now renders graphics and plays sound through its own rewritten code, and its creator is building mod support with an HD remaster mod as the first showcase.

The player standing at the museum entrance at night in the Animal Crossing: New Leaf PC recomp
The player standing at the museum entrance at night in the Animal Crossing: New Leaf PC recomp

The unofficial native PC version of Animal Crossing: New Leaf has a new progress video, and it looks quite different from the first footage. Its creator, 2lateallgone, says the whole rendering pipeline and the sound engine have now been rebuilt as native PC code. The build shown in the video is labelled version 0.2.44, and the project is still a work in progress with no public release.

New Leaf came out on the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 in Japan and reached the rest of the world in 2013. It put players in charge of their town as mayor and became one of the best-selling games on the system.

The player visiting Phil's house, a purple-themed room with a bed and a round rug
The player visiting Phil's house, a purple-themed room with a bed and a round rug

A new interface

The biggest visible change is the interface. On the 3DS, pockets, the map and other menus lived on the bottom screen; in this version they are redrawn as overlays on a single screen. The creator describes the new look as a middle ground between the busy style of New Leaf and the cleaner menus of New Horizons, rather than a faithful copy of the original. The video runs through the title screen, villager conversations, the museum with Blathers, the inventory and a full settings menu with tabs for display, sound, controls, game options, accessibility and mods.

Phil greeting the player in the redesigned dialogue box
Phil greeting the player in the redesigned dialogue box

Mods and an HD remaster

Mod support is in development, and the footage itself is running with an HD remaster mod the creator is making alongside it. The settings screen already has a dedicated Mods tab. The creator is also asking players how amiibo features should work in a PC version, since the 3DS game used Nintendo's NFC figures and cards for some content.

Blathers offering to take a donation or assess a fossil at the museum
Blathers offering to take a donation or assess a fossil at the museum

What's next

The source code isn't public yet. The creator has opened a community Discord for ideas and contributions, which will also announce when the repository goes live, and keeps posting updates on X. As with other recompilations, you'll need your own copy of the 3DS game to play it once it is released; follow 2lateallgone on X for news.

The new single-screen inventory picking a fossil for Blathers to assess
The new single-screen inventory picking a fossil for Blathers to assess
The player cheering in town with the redesigned pockets and Bells counter on screen
The player cheering in town with the redesigned pockets and Bells counter on screen
The settings menu with Display, Sound, Controls, Game, Accessibility and Mods tabs
The settings menu with Display, Sound, Controls, Game, Accessibility and Mods tabs

Found via www.reddit.com