Nintendo has announced that its Animal Crossing series will make its Wii debut across Europe this December.

Originally unveiled by series creator Katsuya Eguchi as Animal Crossing: City Folk earlier this year at E3, the game has been given a name change in Australia and Europe where it is now known as Animal Crossing: Lets Go to the City.

The title will continue to explore the franchise’s main themes of family, friendship and community, and feature not only the rural setting of previous games but also a new city environment.

The game’s E3 reveal was accompanied by the announcement of the Wii Speak accessory, a peripheral enabling online chat that will come bundled with Lets Go to the City.

As well as being online-enabled via the Wii Wi-Fi connection, users will be able to use Nintendo’s DS as a “suitcase” to transport data between Wii consoles, and the title will also allow the transfer of some character data from DS copies of Animal Crossing: Wild Word to Wii.

Nintendo has yet to confirm a US release date for the game, but expect it to be before Christmas too.

For more on the history of Animal Crossing and its creator, check out our recent feature, The Inside Story of Animal Crossing.