Can I Restart Animal Crossing but Keep My Stuff?
The burning question for many Animal Crossing: New Horizons players contemplating a fresh start: Can you restart your island without losing all your hard-earned possessions? The short answer is partially, yes. While you can’t directly transfer your inventory and progress to a new island on the same Switch, there are a few clever workarounds to salvage some of your prized possessions. Let’s dive into how you can make the most of your restart while retaining some of your favorite items.
Entrusting Your Treasures: The Friend Method
The most reliable method to keep your stuff when restarting your Animal Crossing island involves enlisting the help of a trusted friend. Here’s the breakdown:
- Visit a Friend’s Island: Before deleting your save data, pack your inventory and head over to a friend’s island.
- Drop Off Valuables: Methodically drop off all the items you want to keep – tools, furniture, bells (convert them to valuable items like Crowns), clothing, and essential materials.
- Restart Your Island: Proceed with deleting your save data and starting your new Animal Crossing adventure.
- Re-friend and Retrieve: Once you’ve established your new island, re-add your friend and visit their island to collect all your belongings.
This method relies heavily on the trustworthiness and availability of your friend. Coordinate carefully and confirm they have ample space on their island to accommodate your stash. It’s a little time consuming, but it saves a lot of headaches in the long run. You may need to make several trips back and forth to completely offload everything.
Things to Consider
- Friend’s Storage: Ensure your friend has enough storage space to hold your items temporarily.
- Communication: Maintain clear communication to avoid any misunderstandings about item safekeeping.
- Time Commitment: This process can take time, especially if you have a lot of items.
Understanding the Limitations
It’s important to understand the limitations of restarting. Deleting your island’s save data means losing a significant amount of progress. You’ll wave goodbye to:
- Your island layout and terraforming efforts
- Villager relationships
- Catalog progress
- DIY recipes (except those tied to your player profile)
- Island achievements
Everything tied to the island itself is gone, making the decision to restart a significant one. Restarting Animal Crossing gives you a blank canvas to work off. Go nuts! You might even discover new items and recipes you’ve never seen before.
Why Restart?
Despite the losses, many players find restarting Animal Crossing: New Horizons a rewarding experience.
- Fresh Start: If you’re unhappy with your island layout, villager selection, or general progression, a restart provides a clean slate.
- Renewed Engagement: Restarting can reignite your passion for the game, offering new challenges and goals.
- Learning from Mistakes: You can apply lessons learned from your previous island, making different choices and optimizing your gameplay.
- New Villagers: The second best thing about restarting Animal Crossing is the ability to meet new villagers and invite them back to you island.
Island Backup and Restoration
Nintendo offers an island backup service for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This feature is designed primarily to restore your island data in case of console damage, loss, or theft.
To utilize island backup:
- Enable Island Backup: In the game’s settings, enable island backup. This requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
- Restoration Process: If necessary, contact Nintendo support with your Nintendo Account details. They will guide you through the restoration process on a new console.
Island backup cannot be used to manually revert to an earlier island state or to duplicate your island on multiple consoles.
Happy Home Paradise DLC
The Happy Home Paradise DLC is tied to your Nintendo Account, not your island. This means that after restarting your island, you can still access and play the DLC. However, your character and save data from the DLC will no longer be there. It will be starting fresh on everything.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some frequently asked questions to further clarify restarting Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
1. Can I have multiple islands on one Switch?
No. You can only create one island per Nintendo Switch system, even if you have multiple game copies or user profiles. A different Switch is required for each island.
2. Will I lose my Animal Crossing island if I get a new Switch?
Not necessarily. If you have enabled island backup on your original console, you can restore your island on the new Switch.
3. What happens if I delete Animal Crossing without deleting save data?
The save data will stay unless you specifically go and do “Delete Save Data” or a complete factory reset. You’ll lose the island and the humans living on it if you delete all of the data off of the switch and reinstall.
4. What happens if I start a new island in Animal Crossing?
All items, DIY recipes, and Bells will be reset when starting a new game. While players can store some of their personal favorites on a friend’s island to bring over later, the majority of this progress will be removed.
5. How do I restart Animal Crossing without save data?
This is impossible. To restart, you must delete your save data. Go to System Settings > Data Management > Delete Save Data.
6. Is restarting Animal Crossing worth it?
It depends on your circumstances. If you are unhappy with your island and feel limited in your current state, restarting can be a worthwhile decision for a fresh start.
7. What do I lose when I restart Animal Crossing?
You lose your island layout, villagers, catalog progress, DIY recipes (except player-bound ones), achievements, and all items not stored with a friend.
8. Can I transfer my villagers to a new island?
No, you cannot directly transfer villagers. Once you restart, the villagers from your previous island will no longer be tied to your account. You’ll have to find them again through mystery island tours or the campsite.
9. Can I choose my starting villagers when I restart?
No, your starting villagers are randomly selected. You cannot influence this outcome.
10. How long does Animal Crossing: New Horizons last?
It appears that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be unplayable after the year 2060, as Redditor AdTrue4863 discovered presumably by tweaking the date settings on their Nintendo Switch.
11. Why can’t you have multiple islands on Animal Crossing?
You can only create one island per Nintendo Switch system, even if you use multiple games. A different system is required to create a different island. The island save data is saved on the Nintendo Switch system, so there will only be one island (save file), even if different games are used on the same system.
12. Will I lose Happy Home Paradise if I restart my island?
HHP is tied to the account not the island. You can still play HHP after restarting but your character and save data will no longer be there. It will be starting fresh on everything.
13. How do I redo my island?
Enter System Settings from your Switch Home Menu. Scroll down to Data Management. Scroll down to the very bottom to Delete Save Data. Choose the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Save Data, and confirm you want to delete it.
14. Does deleting Animal Crossing delete your island?
That much is the same even for Animal Crossing. You’ll lose the island and the humans living on it if you delete all of the data off of the switch and reinstall. It’ll be like you’re booting the game up for the first time again.
15. Is it a good idea to restart Animal Crossing New Horizons?
After having created an island once, there are mistakes ACNH players can avoid the second time around, whether it’s their island layout, their villagers, or even how quickly they progress.
Final Thoughts
Restarting your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island is a significant decision with both benefits and drawbacks. While you can’t keep everything, utilizing the friend method allows you to salvage some cherished items and resources. Consider your goals, weigh the pros and cons, and embark on your new island adventure with excitement!
For more insights into the educational aspects of gaming, be sure to visit the Games Learning Society at GamesLearningSociety.org.