Animal Crossing: New Horizons, despite being the best-sellingAnimal Crossinggame of all time, still lacks major characters and features from previous games in the series.Among those missing features is Katie, an adorable special cat villagerwho always needs help reuniting with her Mother Kaitlin. Katie has been such a staple of the series that she has even appeared in numerousSuper Smash Bros.titles, most recently as a spirit alongside her mother inUltimate.
Katie is one of the cutest special villagers in the series, with her adorable brown bangs, rosy cheeks, and blue denim dress. While she initially began as a crying child, Katie grew up in between games to become an independent traveler who enjoys visiting new towns. DespiteNew Horizonsalmost completely ignoring her existence,the nextAnimal Crossinggame should add Katie back, especially as a full-time villager.
Katie Has A Long History In Animal Crossing
The Cutest Cat Since 2005
In the over 20-year history ofAnimal Crossing, Katie has been around almost since the beginning.The cute little yellow cat first appeared inAnimal Crossing: Wild World, where she gets separated from her mother Kaitlin and asks the player for help finding her. Because Katie is a child, she’ll quickly lag behind the player, trip, and cry constantly. After the player reunites her with Kaitlin, they’ll receive a gift in the mail as a thank-you. In the next game,City Folk, Katie acts the same and loses her mother, but she grows up in time forNew Leaf.
Animal Crossing: Wild Worldcame out in 2005.
Katie appears inNew Leafas a solo traveler who asks the player for help picking a town for her to travel to next. Sadly,this is the last appearance of Katie in a mainlineAnimal Crossinggameas a full-fledged NPC. InPocket Camp, Katie made a few special appearances as a garden party host and could be seen interacting with her special swing. Her time inNew Horizonswas even more limited, as she was completely ignored when the game first launched, with a poster featuring her added in the 2.0 update in late 2021, which came alongside theHappy Home ParadiseDLC. She can be invited for a coffee in The Roost through her Amiibo card, but that’s it.
Katie Deserves Better
A Future Game Needs To Bring Her Back
New Horizonslacks a lot of content, especially when it comes to the island receiving visitor NPCs. The game tends to only include NPCs that have some sort of shop or service associated with them, so other special villagers who only provided side missions were left out. Though Katie has always been a special type of villager, she deserves more.
Her inclusion in multipleSuper Smash Bros.titles as anAnimal CrossingEaster Egg shows how important she and her mother are to the legacy of the series, but stillNew Horizonsleft her out. It could be that Nintendo wasn’t sure about changing her from a special event villager to a normal one, or perhaps the studio simply substituted her with a new cat character, likeAnimal Crossing’s beloved villager Raymond, instead of bringing back a legacy character.
Players have seen her grow up sinceWild World, so it would make sense forKatie to be upgraded to a full-time villager for players to bring to their new town. Not only would this helpbring back theACvillagers' personalities, especially if Katie could occasionally mention talking to her mother, but it wouldadd one of the cutest legacy characters as an option to see every day. The game to followAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsneeds to improve its villagers, special visitors or not, and Katie should be a priority due to her long history in the series.
