August 5th-14th: Hikoboshi Outfit and Orihime Outfit
While these outfits are not new, they are being brought back again from last year to celebrate the Cowherd and Weaver Girl Day! Although they are clothing items, they are only available from the Nook Shopping App and not at the Able Sisters.
August 10th-16th: Cucumber Horse and Eggplant Cow
Moving on to brand new items, Nintendo added the Cucumber Horse and Eggplant Cow to help celebrate Obon or Bon Festival, a Japanese holiday used to honor the spirits of the dead coming back to our world! The cucumber horse helps spirits travel to our world quickly, while the eggplant cow helps the spirits travel back to their world with all the gifts the living have prepared for them and to travel back more slowly to enjoy the sights (1, 2). These items were also in New Leaf for the Japanese version of the game, so it is nice to see them return to New Horizons in a way that every player can purchase them (3).
September 1st-30th: Grape-Harvest Basket
This item is also returning from last year, but it is a very cute wearable wooden basket with grapes in it to celebrate the Grape-Harvest Festival celebrated in multiple countries. Unfortunately, there is no way to plant grapes on our New Horizons islands, but there are grape trees in Pocket Camp to play with.
September 12th-21st: Dango, Moon Cakes, Moon Rug, Songpyeon
These items seem to be celebrating the Moon-Viewing Day! The moon rug is an item from last year, but the dango, moon cakes, and songpyeon are all new. It is very exciting to see some more food items, since it is something players commonly ask for. Dango and songpyeon are returning items from New Leaf, however in New Leaf these items were region locked (4, 5). Also, it’s nice to see that the developers are thinking of new seasonal items to add to New Horizons like the moon cakes!
Be sure to install the 1.11 Update (released July 29) to be able to purchase these items from the Nooks Shopping App! However, you are not able to time travel ahead to purchase these, so please keep that in mind.
What do you think about these new items? Which ones are your favorite? Are you inspired to redecorate parts of your island?