Does Complaining to Isabelle Work in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
The short answer? Not in the way many players hope. While complaining to Isabelle about a villager might feel like you’re taking concrete steps to oust them from your island paradise, the reality is more nuanced. Reporting a villager to Isabelle primarily serves as a reset function, not an eviction notice. It’s understandable why so many players turn to this method—Isabelle is, after all, the face of island management—but her power over villager residency is not as direct as we’d like it to be. Let’s delve deeper into what complaining to Isabelle actually does and what it doesn’t do in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH).
The Truth About Complaining
When you “Discuss a Resident” with Isabelle at Resident Services, you are presented with a few options for your complaint. Whether you complain about a villager’s clothing, speech patterns, or general behavior, the outcome is largely the same. Instead of prompting a move-out, the complaint primarily resets certain aspects of the villager’s character. Here’s what specifically gets reset:
- Clothing: Any custom clothing designs a villager might be wearing will revert to their default attire. This can be especially helpful if you dislike a certain outfit they’ve adopted.
- Catchphrases: If a villager has picked up a custom catchphrase that you find annoying, complaining to Isabelle will reset it to their original, default catchphrase.
- Letters: Any letters a villager is showing as part of their home’s décor will be reset.
- Designs Any custom designs displayed will be reset back to their default or their assigned designs.
In essence, complaining to Isabelle is a way to manage a villager’s appearance and speech, not their residency. It’s a handy tool for aesthetic control, but it won’t directly influence who moves off your island. This can be a source of frustration for players hoping to quickly evict a specific neighbor.
What Complaining Doesn’t Do
It’s equally important to highlight what complaining to Isabelle doesn’t accomplish:
- It doesn’t decrease friendship levels. Despite common assumptions, complaining to Isabelle has no impact on your friendship level with the villager in question.
- It doesn’t guarantee a villager will move out. This is the biggest misconception. Complaining repeatedly, while potentially making you feel like you are influencing things, does not directly trigger a villager’s departure.
- It will not make a villager sick or sad. This interaction does not negatively affect the villager’s mood or health in any way.
Essentially, complaining to Isabelle is about resetting, not removing. This difference is crucial to understand if you’re trying to curate your island’s population.
The Myth of the “Isabelle Eviction”
Many players have clung to the idea that if you repeatedly complain about the same villager, it may “give them the hint” and prompt them to move. While this idea is often discussed in the community, the hard reality is that villager move-out decisions are primarily random. There’s no evidence to suggest that complaining to Isabelle, even repeatedly, directly contributes to a villager’s desire to leave your island.
This misconception likely stems from the fact that villagers do eventually move on, and players who are constantly interacting with Isabelle might mistakenly attribute the move to their complaints. In reality, the game has its own mechanics for determining when a villager will ask to leave, and these processes are not directly linked to your interactions with Isabelle’s complaint system. While talking with Isabelle could possibly hint at this concept, this is largely speculative and not a verifiable mechanism.
Other Methods of Influencing Villager Departure
So, if complaining to Isabelle doesn’t work, what does? While there’s no surefire method to force a specific villager out, there are certain strategies that some players have found more effective:
- Ignoring the Villager: Some players believe that ignoring a villager entirely, by not talking to them or interacting with them, increases their chances of moving out.
- Time Travel: Time traveling can accelerate the process of a villager asking to move out, allowing players to cycle through their villagers more quickly.
- Camping Villagers: Using an amiibo card to invite a villager to your campsite, and then strategically asking them to move in (which requires someone else to move out), can be a more direct method of kicking out a unwanted resident.
- Bullying: Some players resort to “bullying” tactics, such as repeatedly hitting villagers with nets, pushing them around, or dropping them into pitfalls. While effective, many find this morally questionable and not a method most would want to use.
- Friendship: A higher friendship level with a villager can potentially make them more likely to want to “see the world” and move out. This is not always the case, but it is a factor.
These methods are still not guaranteed to work immediately, as the game’s mechanics often incorporate randomness.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some of the most common questions players have about complaining to Isabelle and its effects, with detailed answers:
1. How many times do I need to complain to Isabelle to get a villager to move out?
Complaining to Isabelle will not directly make a villager move out, no matter how many times you do it. Its primary function is to reset their appearance and catchphrases, not their residency.
2. Does hitting a villager with a net make them leave?
No, hitting a villager with a net will not make them leave. It is a form of bullying that can lower friendship but not affect their move out decision.
3. What happens if I repeatedly complain about a villager to Isabelle?
Repeatedly complaining to Isabelle will only continue to reset their clothing, catchphrases, letters, and any designs they are displaying. It will not change their likelihood of moving out.
4. Can Isabelle kick out a villager directly?
Isabelle cannot directly kick out a villager. She only has the power to reset their appearance and language via the complaints function.
5. Does complaining to Isabelle affect friendship levels?
No, complaining to Isabelle does not negatively impact your friendship level with the villager. The complaints are unrelated to the friendship system.
6. Can you bully a villager off your island?
While bullying methods like hitting with nets or using pitfalls can make villagers feel upset, it doesn’t guarantee that they will leave. While possibly effective in influencing them to move out, it is not a foolproof or recommended method.
7. What do the purple swirls mean when a villager is upset?
A dark purple cloud with a swirl indicates that the villager is either sad or sick, though you’ll only see this indoors for sick villagers in New Horizons.
8. What happens when you neglect Animal Crossing?
If you neglect Animal Crossing for a prolonged period, you’ll return to an island overgrown with weeds, villagers may want to move out, and your home might have cockroaches.
9. Why does Isabelle keep saying my island is cluttered?
Isabelle says this when there are too many “dropped” items on the ground, such as turnips, DIY recipes, furniture, clothing or any items not placed using your island designer app.
10. Can villagers have a crush on you in Animal Crossing?
While there is a strong sense of friendship in ACNH, villagers do not form romantic relationships with the player or with other villagers.
11. How do you catch Isabelle sleeping?
To catch Isabelle sleeping, you must achieve 100% town approval, connect to the internet, and wait until around 12am or 9 pm after 7 days to find her sleeping in Resident Services.
12. Does Isabelle have a crush on the player?
Some fans have perceived Isabelle as having a crush on the player character, regardless of gender, but this is more of a popular fan theory rather than a concrete aspect of the game.
13. Does talking to Isabelle about a villager have any effect?
While talking to Isabelle about a villager can reset their look and phrases, it has no direct impact on their moving out.
14. Is Isabelle a villager clone?
Isabelle is considered a semi-clone of the villager character for her role in Super Smash Bros, but is not officially classified as an Echo Fighter.
15. What does a pitfall seed do?
A pitfall seed is used by being buried. When a villager walks over it, they will fall into a pit. This method can be used to annoy villagers, but it will not make them leave.
In conclusion, while complaining to Isabelle might offer some limited control over a villager’s appearance, it does not directly influence their decision to move out. Understanding this key distinction is crucial for navigating the complexities of villager management in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.