With the latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons game ready to take fans on a whole new adventure, the idea of hackers and data miners digging through the game's files and finding various exploits shouldn't be seen as a surprise. After all, nearly every single game in the world of today has its fair share of people digging through files and wishing to uncover hidden secrets, features, or mess with the game itself.
This time around, however, Nintendo has anticipated that hackers would try to invade Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and as such, rolled out security measures in an attempt to stop them. Going into more detail, hackers were able to crack the game and managed to find out that save data is encrypted. As a result, they were able to create a tool that would decrypt the data and cause an issue for Nintendo and potentially some of the players.
In return, Nintendo anticipated such actions and released a new update in order to combat the decryption tools. Funny enough, some of the hackers were able to calculate the countermeasure and issued a warning by telling others that they will get banned if they go online with any cheats and/or mods active.
Ultimately, Nintendo staying on top of things and rooting out any hackers or data miners who plan to mess around with Animal Crossing: New Horizons' data should be seen as a clear warning. For players who wish to simply play the game and not worry about any hackers or cheaters, the update is meant to create a safer and more fun game environment.
This isn't the first time Nintendo took countermeasures against hackers going after the company's IP. Back when Pokémon Sword & Shield were about to release, leakers posted a decent amount of information on the internet about the games, prompting Nintendo and the Pokémon Company to go after them. Additionally, before Pokémon Home came out, hackers were distributing "illegal" and hacked Pokémon in Pokémon Sword & Shield, causing Nintendo to ban players (even if they got the Pokémon by accident).
Going forward, it's safe to say that Nintendo will continue to enforce strict measures in order to protect its IP and deter hackers from messing around with its games.
Source: Nintendo Life