Prerelease and unused content in New Horizons

The following is a list of prerelease and unused content in.

CEDEC 2020
At the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference of 2020, art director Koji Takahashi, player and villager designer Asako Shibata, and item designer Hiromi Sugimoto spoke about the art direction regarding. During their presentation, screenshots were shared of an early build of. In those screenshots, the grass is shown to have a vibrant grass pattern underneath a grassy texture. The trunk of each hardwood tree featured no texture unlike the final build. Small pockets of dirt were featured, as well as dirt and stone paths. Villager houses had a small window on the top of the screen and feature a different roof and chimney, while the player's house appears to have been finalized in this build of the game. One screenshot showcases a building to the right of the player surrounded by stone paths, possibly indicating that the building was originally an older version of Resident Services. Another screenshot highlighted a different cliff texture, a white wooden fence, an early weed design, and an early stone bridge design. The screenshot also showcased a different water shader that is more opaque than the final build, as well as a different clock interface that nearly resembles that of and an early build of the map UI.

Later, the team addressed villager designs, in which various members began experimenting with various designs to see what would work out when developing. The team also shared art concepts of the new villagers from. In this art concept, Sherb wears an entirely gray sweater; Judy wears a different dress that nearly resembles a, lacks her blue-pink gradient, and has heart-shaped ears; Dom wears a dress shirt and does not have stripes on his horns; Audie's sunglasses are slightly smaller; and Cyd had a different hairstyle, wearing a skull tank and having a red tail.

Lastly, the team addressed furniture design, desiring to match the player's expectations whenever they decorate with any sets of furniture. They demonstrated with a, showcasing the fan's guard frame and buttons to make it stand it to players. In an early build, the guard frame of a Retro Fan had an equal proportion, while the final build had the front guard frame having more proportion than the back guard frame. The Retro Fan in the final build was also resized, heightened, and given extra details compared to its early build.

Another design concept addressed by the team was to allow each furniture item to fit accordingly to the player's house. They choose a limit of 4 units, or 40 meters, and accommodated each furniture item to this new furniture system using a as an example. Finally, interactions were done to certain furniture items, with one concept art regarding the usage of a.

E3 2019
was formally revealed in E3 2019, although many elements of the game had changed from its reveal on June 11, 2019 to its release on March 20, 2020.

Notably, grass patterns are confined to a small circle and spread around the island, unlike the final game featuring a more uniform grass pattern scattered across the island. The snow also lacked a grass pattern in the reveal, with the final game featuring a circle pattern. The Call Resident app in this demo is called "Call Islander" and uses a different interface from the final game. The player also uses the Island Designer Construction Permit without a helmet in this demo. Snow in this build falls more heavy and notable than in the final game.

Fuchsia's house is different in this build of the game than the final version. While her wallpaper and flooring remained the same, Fuchsia originally featured a instead of the  in the final game. Her house layout also changed, with the, , , , , , , and in a different placement in the initial build. Fuchsia's was also in the Coral Pink variant than the Fire Red variant. Additionally, the red cute floor lamp's shade was colored white in this build instead of red in the final build.

At the end of the E3 2019 trailer, Tom Nook appears to the player to deliver them their itemized bill. During his conversation in this demo of the game, Tom Nook's voice is high pitched, matching similarly to the default voice for lazy villagers. The final game pitches his voice down significantly.

Nintendo Direct 9.4.19
Although much of had been finalized in this build, there are some elements that differ a bit from the final game. Several of these elements remain from the E3 showcase, such as the player using the Island Designer without a helmet, the Call Resident app named the "Call Islander" app, and Tom Nook's voice sounding exactly as he did in the E3 2019 trailer.

New unique changes include several villagers with different name bubble coloring than the final game, including Bill (with his name bubble text originally yellow), Tammy (with her name bubble text originally orange), Rosie (with her name bubble originally dark blue), and Angus (with his name bubble originally colored brown). The dialogue that shows up when the player places down the tent, "I set up my tent! The island is feeling less deserted already.", was replaced with "I set up my tent! Now I have a home base for my new island life!".

Outside of the DIY Recipe app, item names were lowercase instead of the sentence case that was included in the final product. The interface that appears whenever a player eats an edible item is colored red and does not feature the "/10" denoting the maximum number of energy points obtainable.

New Horizons version 1.0.0
Despite version 1.0.0 being the final build of, there were notable changes in the day one update made to specific images for certain assets. These included:

Special characters
Since version 1.0.0 and before the addition of all of them in various updates, data existed for the following special characters who were not present in the game outside of posters obtainable from Nook Shopping. This included an internal ID, the character's birthday, and their name bubble color. • Blanca (added in 2.0)

• Booker (added in 2.0)

• Brewster (added in 2.0)

• Chip (added in 2.0)

• Copper (added in 2.0)

• Cyrus (added in )

• Digby (added in 2.0)

• DJ KK (added in 2.0)

• Don (added in 2.0)

• Franklin (added in )

• Gracie (added in 2.0)

• Grams (added in 2.0)

• Harriet (added in 2.0)

• Jack (added in )

• Jingle (added in 1.6.0)

• Joan (added in 2.0)

• Kapp'n (added in 2.0)

• Katie (added in 2.0)

• Katrina (added in 2.0)

• Leif (added in 1.2.0)

• Leila (added in 2.0)

• Leilani (added in 2.0)

• Lottie (added in 2.0)

• Luna (added in )

• Lyle (added in 2.0)

• Nat (added in 2.0)

• Pascal (added in )

• Pavé (added in )

• Pelly (added in 2.0)

• Pete (added in 2.0)

• Phineas (added in 2.0)

• Phyllis (added in 2.0)

• Porter (added in 2.0)

• Redd (added in 1.2.0)

• Reese (added in 1.2.0)

• Resetti (added in 2.0)

• Rover (added in 1.2.0)

• Shrunk (added in 2.0)

• Tortimer (added in 2.0)

• Wendell (added in 2.0)

• Zipper (added in )

DJ KK
In addition to other data, an icon for DJ KK was present in 1.0.0, before being removed in version 1.1.0. DJ KK would eventually be added to the game in version 2.0, albeit with a different icon.

Reaction
There are several unavailable animations within the game's code that can only be used by the player via hacking. These animations are either reserved for special characters or villagers or are outright unused. In addition, some reactions listed here were previously available in past games in the series.

Vegetation
Vegetables were discovered in version 1.0.0 of, with several strings being unused: ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , and. The latter four also had some leftover icons before they and the vegetable names were removed in version 1.1.0.

Internal references to vegetables would reappear in version with the following strings: ,  ,  ,  ,  , and. A new bush called Plumeria was also discovered.

All of the vegetation referenced in version 1.0.0 and 1.4.0 would eventually be added to the game: s, s, s, and s were added in version 1.5.0, and es,, , es, s, es, and es were added in version 2.0.

The Roost
References to The Roost existed in prior to its addition in version 2.0.

In version 1.0.0, a executable file known as  suggested that the museum would have a room dedicated to The Roost. This was promptly removed in version 1.1.0, alongside the modification of any villager dialogues that reference Brewster.

In version 1.10.0, assets regarding The Roost resurfaced, with evidence that a café entrance, a new string called, and a third floor of the museum that was highly suggested to be the location of The Roost. Version 1.11.0 introduced a new flag setting called ".

Gyroids
References to gyroids existed in prior to their addition in version 2.0.

A 1.0.0 executable file exists as, suggesting that gyroids were to be given a separate room in the museum. This file, alongside any dialogue that mentions gyroids, were removed in version 1.1.0. Another string,, surfaced in version 1.4.0, once again suggested the inclusion of gyroids.

Miscellaneous
Internal references to sewing and cooking  could have be found in the game's strings prior to their removal in version 1.4.0. Cooking would eventually be added in version 2.0.

Event flows were found for Nat and Chip, suggesting that they were replaced by Flick and C.J. far into development.

Internal references to a Portuguese translation of has also been found in the game, with strings pertaining to both European  and Brazilian  Portuguese.