10 Tips for Successful Living In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives you a camping tent to start, instead of your typical house. As part of Nook Inc.’s Deserted Island Getaway Package, it isn’t something you need to pay off with the series’ usual currency (bells). Instead, Tom Nook lets you pay off the trip with Nook Miles, achievement-like goals that steadily reward you for fishing, catching bugs, pulling weeds, and the other typical Animal Crossing activities. Rack up those miles as soon as Tom Nook shows you how, so you can pay off the package.

Paying off your tent gives you the opportunity to buy a house and unlock several other upgrades, including turning the Resident Services tent into a full-fledged shop.

You'll want to speak with new residents as you live your virtual life on your own island. However, beyond just the initial pleasantries, there’s more to accomplish than you might expect. Help a beach-wrecked sailor back on his feet. Convince far off island dwellers to move to your home. You can even unlock new shops by just talking (and buying from) merchants who drift into town. Don’t be shy!

There are two vital upgrades you can get by spending additional Nook Miles after you pay off your tent. Go to the kiosk in the Resident Services tent after your package is paid off and buy the Better Tools DIY book and the Pocket Organization Guide as soon as they’re available. The former provides recipes for upgrading your tools beyond “flimsy,” and the latter adds an entire row to your inventory space.

One of the first DIY recipes you unlock is your own crafting table, which lets you craft items in your home or anywhere on the island besides the Resident Services tent. Don’t build one right away. You can use Tom Nook’s crafting table in the Resident Services tent at any time, so you don’t need it. More importantly, it requires iron nuggets to craft, and those nuggets are precious early on. 

Iron nuggets don’t just let you upgrade your tools to sturdy versions; they also let you upgrade the Resident Services tent to a full building. You need 30 iron nuggets to upgrade the tent, so don’t waste nuggets on a crafting table or tools. After all, you have access to Tom Nook's crafting table and can purchase cheap, flimsy tools with easy-to-acquire bells (the game's currency). Upgrading the Resident Services tent also unlocks the ladder, which lets you climb cliffs and explore more of the island.

Animal Crossing fans already know about Blathers, the owl who runs the museum. You start on a deserted island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so Blathers and his museum aren’t there. That means new fish, bugs, and fossils can’t be donated to it, cutting off one of the most strangely satisfying parts of the game. Fortunately, Tom Nook can take your donations until Blathers shows up. In fact, you need to give him a handful of bugs and fish before he can entice Blathers to appear.

Once you get enough samples and Blathers comes to the island, you’ll get the recipe for the vaulting pole. It lets you jump across rivers, opening up the island for more exploration. You’ll still need to give Blathers plenty more samples before he can finally open a museum instead of working out of a tent, but it’s worthwhile. When the museum opens, you’ll finally have a place to show off all the fish and bugs you caught, and fossils you found!

Don’t be afraid of running out of Nook Miles. They start off as an achievement system, which gives the impression that they’re limited. Tom Nook will eventually upgrade your Nook Miles plan to Nook Miles+, which adds a series of five rotating, repeatable achievements that can steadily give you Nook Miles as you play. You won’t run out of Nook Miles , and you can easily grind for more using the upgrade.

This is useful in the early game when you want to collect iron nuggets to upgrade the Resident Services tent, and if you want more than just two other residents on your island. When Dodo Airlines opens, you can spend 2,000 Nook Miles for a Nook Miles Ticket. This ticket takes you to a new, smaller deserted island randomly generated in the game. The island has fresh rocks you can hit with your shovel to collect iron nuggets. Each rock can only be hit three times a day, so you’re limited on your own island with how many nuggets you can possibly get in a day. Going to new islands will get those nuggets pouring in.

The other deserted islands also have different fruits you can collect, which help diversify your own island’s flora. You can get more wood, sticks, and flowers on the island, too. You can even meet new characters that you can invite to your island. You’ll discover a new animal friend if you find a campfire on the deserted island. Talking to them twice lets you invite them to your own island, growing the community.

If you squint, there’s a weird and potentially unsettling element of colonialism in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. After all, the game is about exploiting the resources of uncharted natural lands to help your consumer society thrive and expand. A great way to relieve your guilt, and help your economy, is to plant trees instead of chopping them down. Eventually space needs to be cleared to make room for new buildings. However, trees left standing provide valuable wood, tree branches, and fruit every day if you hit them with a stone ax, not a blade. That fruit gets especially valuable if you import new crops from foreign islands. Whoops, accidentally need another colonialism.

Alongside Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World was Nintendo’s very first foray into modern online play. The family-friendly company is still deathly afraid of the internet, to a fault. However, Nintendo realizes that a game about socializing needs its players to actually be connected. There are a few ways in New Horizons you can hop over to your friends’ island via the airport. You can share a special code. You could coordinate in real life to set a date. Or you can just leave your gate open and see who comes through. That last option arguably leads to the nicest surprises.

The world of Animal Crossing is chock full of little secrets to uncover for the curious and the patient. The beautiful, lush HD graphics make the treasures here feel even more subtle. So, keep your eyes peeled for glowing patches of ground, glistening spots on the beach, creatures that fly away if you startle them, or anything else that just seems off. You’ll almost always be rewarded for your investigation.

New Horizons is the first Animal Crossing game that seems truly poised to take advantage of our current social media climate. The Nintendo Switch lets you share directly to Twitter. That’s wonderful for a game all about expression. The game is just bursting with meme potential. From passports with custom titles like “Internet Grandpa” to a variety of kitschy home decor to the comedy of Tom Nook’s ongoing grift.

Use text chat and passive aggressive emotes to troll friends who visit. Whip out your in-game camera phone, change your filters, and never stop posting. With the Nintendo Switch Online companion mobile app, you can scan QR codes for new patterns to put on various items. Bless your yard with a pixelated Adam Sandler from Uncut Gems. This is how I win.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a terrific game, but it isn't the only one worth your time. Check out these other features that highlight contemporary and classic games that you should play right now.

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