Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a free summer update on July 3, just a few days from now! It’s the first of a two part July update which is adding diving in the ocean among other things. That’s big news for island inhabitants as they’ll finally be able to get more than just their feet wet. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to unlock diving, share our list of new underwater sea creatures, and talk about the all-new Pascal event which rewards the new mermaid DIY set.
More Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons July Bugs & Fish Guide – All New Critters Available
- Queer Players Use Animal Crossing: New Horizons to Party for Pride
- The Quest for the Weirdest Possible Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island
How to Unlock Diving
From the looks of it, all you need to have before going for a swim and dive in the ocean is a wet suit. These are available for purchase at Nook’s Cranny for 3,000 bells. The designs rotate daily so make sure to check back for new looks. Once you have it, put it on and head on over to the beach and jump in! In the trailer our character jumps in from the platform rock on their island so you may have to go there specifically.
Sea Creatures List
There are bound to be a few dozen sea creatures to catch, likely depending on which hemisphere you’re in. While we wait for the update and the dataminers to do their work, we’ll be listing all of the confirmed critters below.
- Sea Star
- Sea Anemone
- Spotted Garden Eel
Pascal Event
We don’t have all of the details on this new encounter, but from the look of things, sometimes Pascal will pop up and ask you to give him the object you just snagged from the bottom of the sea. You can either give it to him or keep it for yourself. Assuming you do hand over the item, afterward he mentions leaving something behind for you which seems to be new mermaid themed DIY recipes. From the trailer we’ve been able to confirm the following housing items.
- Mermaid Dresser
- Mermaid Table
- Mermaid Chair
- Mermaid Lamp
- Mermaid Bed
- Mermaid Clock
- Mermaid Wall
- Mermaid Floor
And that’s all we really know for the time being. It may be as straightforward as everything we just laid out. As far as we can tell there’s no minigame for grabbing these sea creatures like there is for fishing and we didn’t see any scurrying away like with bug catching. If it turns out that you actually have to do something, we’ll be sure to update this so we can walk you through the process. Don’t expect it to be too complicated though, this is Animal Crossing after all.
While you wait, you should head off and try to catch this month’s new bugs and fish. That is, if you’re in the northern hemisphere. If you are, there are lots of new creatures to catch. The southern hemisphere, however, is well into winter now and has no new species available in either category.
