Player deletes Animal Crossing: New Horizons island and restarts with a Wild World approach

Gamesradar reports that when the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 3.0 update was announced in 2025, the author deleted their island, resetting more than 1,000 hours of progress.

They said the decision came from feeling overwhelmed by planning a new island after previously pre-planning layouts, prioritising Bell-making and using terraforming to perfect placements. Instead, the author returned to the carefree playstyle of Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005) — avoiding money farming and pre-planning, letting plots autopopulate, accepting randomly assigned villagers and even grabbing the first face on a Nook Miles island — and found their island felt more alive and varied as a result.

After playing this way for over a month the author reached a three-star island in time for the 3.0 update and reported no burnout. They recommend restarting blind without expectations and say they will play future Animal Crossing games with the same relaxed approach.

Key Topics

Culture, Animal Crossing, New Horizons, Wild World, Nook Miles, Tom Nook