Is your Animal Crossing New Horizons game too slow when loading? If it takes forever for your game to load, there’s no need to worry about it. In most instances, the game is just abnormally slow to load by design. However, if you think that the game’s loading time is way too slow, you can read this guide to know what do do.
Causes of Animal Crossing slow loading issue
There are a number of possible factors that can cause Animal Crossing New Horizons slow loading issue.
Animal Crossing slow loading time is not a glitch.
Animal Crossing New Horizons was released on March 2020 and even then, it’s been known to suffer from loading issue. I’ve been personally playing this game for months now and i admit, the game’s loading time is longer compared to other similar Switch or non-Switch games.
By longer i mean that the loading time varies from time to time. Sometimes, visiting a friend’s island takes longer than 2 minutes for me while at other times, it’s only under a minute.
The same is true for the loading of the main game. There are times though that this can take up to 5 minutes. Some gamers have reported that their game took even longer time to load the game (up to about 15 minutes). While this is not supposed to happen, longer loading times are influenced by a number of factors such as your internet connection, the condition of your game card, the software environment of your Switch, or the condition of the hardware.
Slow internet connection.
Although you can play ACNH even on most decent internet connection speed, the loading time can suffer significantly if your connection is very slow or if it keeps dropping off. Many gamers who rely on unreliable mobile data connection will find out that their loading times are longer compared to when they use a faster, reliable wifi connection.
Internal storage device issue.
For some, Animal Crossing loading time can be extremely slow especially if the console’s internal storage device is damaged or corrupted. When there’s a problem with the internet storage device, other games may also suffer from the same slow loading issue, or may frequently crash.
Game card issue.
If you have the physical copy of Animal Crossing New Horizons, it’s also possible that the loading issue you’re having may be card-related. Other indications of a game card problem includes random crashing and errors about the game in question.
Console-specific issue.
If other games and not just Animal Crossing have slow loading time as well, it’s possible that it’s a console problem. You may need to perform a factory reset to check if that’s the case.
How to fix Animal Crossing slow loading issue
If you think that your Animal Crossing New Horizons game is slow when loading between areas, don’t worry as that may not be a serious issue at all. Learn what you can do below.
Be patient.
When Animal Crossing was only about a month from its release date, a lot of people noticed that it took some time for the game to load. The issue eventually vanished on its own. If your Switch seems to be taking its sweet time to load Animal Crossing recently, try observing the game for a few days to see if the situation will improve. Due to the console hardware’s limitations and designs, games can take longer to load compared to games that you play on a gaming-optimized PC or rival consoles like the PS4 or Xbox One.
Use fast internet connection.
If Animal Crossing has slow loading time, especially when you try to play online (visit your friend’s island for instance), it may be caused by slow or intermittent internet connection. If your home connection is slow, try connecting to a faster wifi network of a friend, neighbor, or family member and see if that will fix the problem. While Animal Crossing New Horizons can play fine on 1Mbps, we suggest that you connect to a wifi network with at least 5Mbps to improve slow loading issue.
Delete Software.
If the issue is not due to slow internet connection, the next potential solution that you can try is to temporarily remove the game by deleting it. We suggest that you do this if you have a game card for Animal Crossing by doing the Delete Software option. To do that, follow these steps:-Go to the Home screen.-Highlight the Animal Crossing New Horizons game icon.-Press + button to open Options.-Select Data Management.-Go to Delete Software and select it.
Try the game card in another Nintendo Switch.
Another reason why your Animal Crossing game may be slow when loading is a possible issue with the game card. If you suspect that that may be the case, try inserting your Animal Crossing game card to another Nintendo Switch and see if there’s a difference.
Factory reset your Nintendo Switch.
In some rare cases, a console issue can lead to game problems like crashing, showing black loading screen, or slow loading problem. If none of the solutions in this guide help, consider wiping the device by doing a factory reset.
Suggested readings:
- How To Fix Animal Crossing Black Screen Issue | Nintendo Switch
- How To Fix The Last Of Us Part 2 Crashing Or Won’t Load | PS4
- How To Fix PS4 Overheating When Playing Ghost Of Tsushima
- How To Fix Ghost Of Tsushima Crashing Or Won’t Load | PS4
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