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Animal Crossing: New Leaf update will weed your town

That'll trim down time.

You know what happens. You leave your Animal Crossing for too long, and the weeds appear. Your town becomes unsightly, overgrown. It's a mess.

You also get cockroaches in your house, and your favourite neighbours leave. It's tough, we understand. And, more to the point, Nintendo understands.

So when you head back to your town in November, when Animal Crossing: New Leaf gets its big, free update, you will find Nintendo has called the gardener in.

That's right - no ticking off from Leif the sloth for letting your garden get overgrown. It'll simply be clean - at least, until the weeds start growing once again.

If none of this makes sense (hello, Wes) - just to reiterate one point: yes there is a Nintendo game with a character called Leif who deals with your weed.

This autumn's Animal Crossing: New Leaf update comes four years after the game first launched. It will, among other things, add amiibo functionality to the game, with a new set of physical cards available to summon villagers to your town. The fresh wave of 50 cards launches 11th November.

As yet, we don't know what Animal Crossing amiibo figures will do. Some figures from other Nintendo series will also be compatible in some way.

From 25th November, all new copies of the game will come with the update pre-installed and a brand new title: Animal Crossing: New Leaf Welcome amiibo!

Finally, a special Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct is planned for sometime this autumn. We expect to hear more on the update then as well as details of the recently-delayed Animal Crossing mobile game which will now launch in spring 2017.