If there's one game I've been waiting for more than any other in recent years, it's a new Animal Crossing. When Nintendo announced similar Pokémon Pokopia last month, it was clear that it won't happen anytime soon. As if to clear up all doubts about it, a significantly upgraded Switch 2 version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons was announced today.

Of course, I'm very happy about this, and I'm going to restart my dear island of Iacon to start a new life with new neighbors, gather all the insects and try to keep up with all the crazy antics. At the same time, it now absolutely means that there will be no new Animal Crossing for a long time, probably not for years. A serious guess is the next game will be released in 2029.

Nintendo has done strange things before (I wrote a whole article about it the other day), but to release a Pokémon clone of the concept almost at the same time as they release an upgraded Animal Crossing: New Horizon – and at the same time load up with a brand new game... I really don't believe it.

I'm looking forward to getting to grips with the updated game next year, but my longing for a real Animal Crossing with a pronounced live service component remains. I want a game and a world that lives and grows, month after month, year after year. I want to be able to sell and buy things online, participate in auctions, check out other people's islands and be able to travel to new places and have significantly more details for interior design.

And I'm convinced that I will... But not in the next few years.

This will be fun, but it feels undeniably a little sad that the next Anmal Crossing will undoubtedly be delayed. Long.

The fact that Nintendo is bigger than ever has hardly escaped anyone, but the fact is that few things illustrate it more clearly than the interest in their newly opened pop-up store in London and the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto. When they confirmed that they would temporarily open a store - those who were Nintendo members and registered interest were given the chance to get priority.

There will be a few days of exclusive chance to visit the store before it opens to everyone. You must therefore pre-register your interest to get the opportunity to buy from Nintendo (as if they are the ones who are doing you a favor), and after that, record-long queues are expected when everyone is allowed to leave.

If we look at the Nintendo Museum, the seat is even more strange. For those who want to go to Nintendo's museum, you need to be a member. It is through your membership that you can pre-book tickets. But... It's not really the ticket you book, but your place in a lottery to go. However, this is also something that ends several months in advance, and if you want to go to the Nintendo Museum, you should book far in advance and have a lot of luck - then you might be able to get the tickets you want.

Next year I'm going to visit Japan and the Nintendo Museum is something I hope to visit, but if that will be the case remains to be seen. And the convoluted process of customer demands, extremely early bookings and the need for luck - and the fact that people still think it's worth it - is a clearer acknowledgement of Nintendo's popularity than anything else.

Next year I hope to visit Nintendo, which is not the easiest thing apparently, but if it goes my way, there will be an article with my impressions.

The fact that different games have different terminology is of course something completely obvious, and often it can be downright difficult to keep up when people in the know are talking about the game they are currently most into. There are plenty of actual game terms and of course also Swedishizations.

During this weekend's Borderlands 4 game, a group of good friends and I laughed as I walked around cursing over my bulky packing that meant I couldn't pick up all the loot I walked past. I also want things, just to be able to sell if nothing else. A gentleman we usually play with suddenly asked if I had "loot anxiety"... And I did. I understood exactly what he meant.

Since I think this with languages is very nice, I was curious to hear what your favorite terms are when you play whatever it is you play in the company of happy friends? Is it perhaps W-rushes, construction spins, enpuffs, ganka, smurfs or something completely different? The more personal and incomprehensible - the better.

You can get loot anxiety for less...

Of course, there are all kinds of gadgets for the kitchen, from hand blenders to air fryers and egg cookers. Most are completely unnecessary for most people - but then there are also the things you can't do without.

For my own part, I mourned when our rice cooker for two decades recently collapsed, but thought nothing more about it. Now we boil manually, my partner and I reasoned. It lasted about a week. To get absolutely perfect rice without effort that is also kept warm so you don't have to try to time the other food, turned out to be worth more than I thought.

Despite the fact that there are plenty of food influencers who are trying to make rice cooking a bigger art form than it actually is, it is basically impossible to do more better results than what a simple rice cooker for 500-1000 SEK is capable of, And now a new one has been ordered. It had to be the successor to the Tefal we had before (NB, no advertising, there are probably 100 better models, do your own research), this also lasts 20 years so it must be considered good value.

So... That said, what single kitchen gadget (in addition to the standard stuff) would you not have been able to do without?

There are always complaints about the single-player campaigns with every new Call of Duty (extremely few exceptions in the last 15 years) and Battlefield (with the exception of Bad Company). For good reason. They are not up to scratch.

Treyarch had a fun thing going on with Black Ops, but it got way too dizzy and fuzzy after a couple of games, and today feels like wandering time travel without a lot of well-written putty that holds everything together nicely without flaws. And I can't help but think that this is a great shame.

Of course, I understand why. It's hard to sell microtransactions for a single-player game, and when you're done with it, you're done with it. The result is that they only dutifully develop the campaigns, which are a few hours long and, as I said, not very well done. People want them even though they are mediocre. It kind of belongs.

Activision and EA have a job to do here. The graphics engines are there and are absolutely top class. Instead of promptly releasing these almost puerila action adventures, let a separate team make a real game. Activision should bring in someone who can really tell a military story (why not Kathryn Bigelow?) and create a 20-hour campaign with a really good story that keeps us spellbound, where we don't have to be thrown on with massive set pieces just to get everything done in the course of a few measly hours.

EA and its side have a somewhat simpler mission, namely they only need to revive Bad Company. Come up with a rich story and let the boys go on an adventure again. Fuck the multiplayer.

Then you can advantageously let the same squad play the lead role in two smaller expansions of five hours each (still more than Call of Duty and Battlefield usually offer) in order to sell season passes. I am absolutely convinced that there is a market for this. Even oft-criticized games like Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians have each sold over ten million copies. People want military campaigns - and lavish ones are a wide-open market that no one right now seems to want to take in with pliers.

If there had been a well-written and lavish military thriller campaign, completely without multiplayer - would you have been interested?