The Pros and Cons of The Next Animal Crossing Adding Even More Villagers

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 28, 2024 5 Views 7 Min Read
The Pros and Cons of The Next Animal Crossing Adding Even More Villagers



Animal Crossing has introduced hundreds of villagers to the franchise over the course of its history. With so many cute critters, many Animal Crossing players are obsessed with collecting villagers. While these animal friends may be the franchise’s hook, including too many could also be to Animal Crossing’s detriment.




The original Animal Crossing game released exclusively for Japan in 2001, included 215 villagers. This number has increased in almost every installment since this initial release, with Animal Crossing: Wild World and Animal Crossing: City Folk acting as exceptions. Villagers have almost doubled in count since the titular first game, building on a fun feature that delights players with not just returning characters, but new ones.

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The Pros to Adding More Villagers to Animal Crossing

The freshness of new villagers is obviously a hook for any Animal Crossing installment. Much like Pokemon, Animal Crossing often encourages a “Catch ‘em all!” mentality. With the number of villagers in Animal Crossing increasing constantly, the next installment will likely be no exception. Players will have new villagers to become attached to, or vehemently hate.


New types of villagers could be introduced in the next Animal Crossing installment. The most obvious expansion for villagers would be to introduce a new species of animal into the game. There are thirty-five different species of villagers in the Animal Crossing franchise, with rabbits, mice, dogs, and cats, featuring the most characters. It would be unsurprising to see a new Animal Crossing add new species, especially since most villager species are mammals or birds. Octopi and frogs are the only two villager species that aren’t either of these classifications. Perhaps reptiles or fish will be the next category of additions.

Animal Crossing does feature the chameleon Flick, but as a bug-centric NPC, he’s not a standard villager fans can collect.


The same can be said for personality types in the franchise. There are far fewer personality types than species, with only eight personalities included in Animal Crossing. Expanding into more bizarre territories like “crybaby” or even more mundane categories like “shy” could be fun for players. All villagers have their own quirks. With more of these kooky characters being added to the game, it only makes sense that new personality traits could be introduced as well.

These additions would also make this hypothetical new Animal Crossing game stand out from its predecessors. The gameplay and mechanics of Animal Crossing are rather simple. Therefore, each entry into the franchise has to have a hook to make it stand out. In the case of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, players decorate a campsite rather than an island or a town. These new villager species and personalities could be one such hook for a new installment.

The Cons to Adding More Villagers to Animal Crossing


Of course, for every pro to adding more villagers to Animal Crossing, there is a con. While collecting all the game’s villagers is an undertaking that some players choose to take on, other players have their hearts set on specific villagers only. By increasing the number of villagers in the game, players have a lower chance of finding their favorites. Buying villagers and villager hunts became huge trends due to the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If players latch onto specific villagers introduced in this new game, like with Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Raymond, these trends could return in full force.

Additionally, a bigger quantity of villagers won’t necessarily lead to higher quality among them. If new species and personality types aren’t added to Animal Crossing, there’s a high chance that players will keep spawning villagers of the same species and personality over and over. For example, Stinky, Rudy, and Kid Cat, are all Jock-type cats.


The true pros and cons of adding villagers to the next Animal Crossing installment won’t be completely revealed until the game is actually released and fans know what context new villagers will exist in. Until then, players can continue to hunt for their favorite villagers and collect them all in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

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