That can be remedied by spending Nook Miles to get a plane ticket to visit a randomly-generated island. The type of fruit that appears on your island is random, for instance, and there will only ever be one kind at the start. If you care about them, you can re-roll - by which we mean, you can start over and delete your save to have another shot at what you want. There are some elements of your island that are random. Things that won't be impacted by your island choice, but will differ anyway You'll share that one island - so choose carefully. The bad news is you cannot change the name of your island and it is strictly one island per Nintendo Switch, even if more than one player is playing the game. Similarly, you can also change ledges and rivers when you unlock terraforming tools later on. So if you make a mistake or your priorities change, you can rejig. The good news is that almost everything that you manually place - houses, shops, items and so on - can be moved later on, albeit as a cost. Others might welcome the ability to break their island up, especially as you can eventually build bridges and reshape rivers - so, again, it's a personal choice. If you want the vast majority of your island's buildings on one landmass rather than several, you'll probably want an island design where the rivers are less intrusive. Next, consider the river placement when compared to your long term plans. Just be aware that it'll become the central hub of your island life once it becomes more bustling and busy. That's different for everyone - some might want resident services as close to the middle of the island as possible. The main thing you should worry about is the location of Resident Services and the airport make sure the layout has them in a position where you'll be comfortable with their location in relation to where you might place your tent, which will later become the plot of your house.
That's okay! Here's what to think about first and foremost. But you still aren't sure what to do with your first island pick. Okay, so - you understand the above disclaimers. Things to consider when choosing an island shape We recommend you pick a layout you like and not worry too much about min/maxing your island choice. Don't worry about things like the location of rocks, as every few days rocks will shatter under your shovel or axe, at which point a new one will spawn in a new location the next day.Įvery island type has everything you need at every stage of the game. This is a new sort of 'gated' progression to the earliest stages of Animal Crossing New Horizons, but each island layout has access to the same basic things at each stage, meaning - we reiterate - that there is no 'best' island style.
Then, later, you'll unlock the means to create a ladder to clamber the inclines. Pretty quickly you'll craft a means to cross over the rivers to unlock another chunk of the island which will give you access to more of the same. This means you'll have everything you need to gather resources to do some crafting. So that means initially you'll have access to a chunk of the island that features the town square and resident services tent, the airport, a good amount of beach, a bunch of trees and some rocks. This isn't a cop-out let us explain.Īs we say above, every island layout has the same basic setup. In fact, pretty much every island is equal. Okay, so, here comes the kicker, the thing that in your heart of hearts you probably know is coming: in Animal Crossing New Horizons there is no 'best' island layout that you absolutely must choose. That doesn't mean it's necessarily the best one for you, however. For what it's worth, we picked the island layout in the very bottom right of the image above. Rivers will follow different routes and raised areas of land will be in different places, however. Resident Services and the area that will eventually develop into your town square is marked on the map with the Animal Crossing leaf symbol, and the airport will be on the grey, rocky area directly below it, or near enough to it. What differs is placement - these buildings and resources will appear in different places. It's important to note that all islands will have the same basic resources - trees, stones, natural flowers and basic starter buildings like Resident Services and the Airport are always present. As you can see, the island layouts vary in a number of ways.