The latest update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons has removed a long-standing bug that allowed players to grow Star Fragment trees (read more about it here). The 1.4.1 patch notes for Animal Crossing: New Horizons are light on details, listing only three simple bugs, but it’s the removal of Star Fragment trees that has riled up a portion of the game’s community. First, here are the Animal Crossing: New Horizons update 1.4.1 patch notes:
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 1.4.1 patch notes
© Nintendo
General updates
The following issues that occurred in Ver. 1.4.0 have been fixed:
- Fixed an issue where trees could mature and contain things other than the normal fruit, etc.
- Fixed an issue where shining soil disappears after returning to your own island after a dream and buried Bells appear in that location instead.
- Fixed an issue where the player swings their shovel through the air when attempting to hit a rock placed at a certain location.
Related: August fish and bugs list for Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The other two bugs are painful, but small fry in the eyes of the game’s more, uh, passionate community members. How upset are players over the removal of a modded bug, you ask? Enough to open up a Change.org petition, apparently, which has drawn almost 2000 signatures at the time of writing.
“Star Fragment trees and other hacked trees were completely harmless in Animal Crossing New Horizons,” the petition reads. “They had no other purpose other than looking pretty and in no way furthered you in the game. Nintendo did this solely to help accounts not get banned/accounts but They could have took action to stop the reports from happening and protect the users. Myself and many other gamers who play Animal Crossing New Horizons want them back because they made our island look so much better and cause no harm to anyone at all.”
Is it likely to change Nintendo’s mind? No. Is it funny? Yes. Still, when the big has been in the game for months now, and doesn’t negatively affect anyone, it’s easy to see why players are disappointed that Nintendo has suddenly decided to remove it. A simple star-fragment decoration might have been a nice gift in recognition, but Nintendo has never been a company that supports hacked or modded game versions, no matter how beautiful they may be. What do you make of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 1.4.1 patch notes? Sad to see the Star Fragment trees go? Let us know down in the comments.