It’s officially been one year, two months and nine days (and counting) since Nintendo made any significant content updates to its second most successful game in history — Animal Crossing: New Horizons. So January 4th YouTuber NintenTalk released a challenge to their viewers to “Make Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fun Again” by presenting what they dubbed #ACNHHardMode.
After more than 40.17 million units were sold. since its launch in March 2020, literally making history books
This new twist on the game invites “veteran players and new players” to relaunch their islands and test their skills by following a strict set of guidelines designed to bring the joy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons to life. The restrictions and additional challenges are an attempt to rebuild the community-wide excitement that made the game so popular from the start. Think Pokémon’s Nuzlocke mod and you’re not too far off—no animal deaths here, of course.
NintenTalk was inspired to create this mod to recapture that magic, and had this to say in his YouTube video explaining ACNH Hard Mode:
“That’s the beauty of this mod… let’s go back to the beginning… I want to start from scratch and really take my time, I guess, with Animal Crossing.”
“Hard Mode” starts by restarting your island from scratch, with no bells or materials. There are also five separate challenge categories: Restart Rules, Peasant Rules, Daily Rules, Design Rules, and Economy Rules.
One of the most unique challenges comes from the “Design Rules” where players are only allowed to wear and use their own designs (or those obtained from another player’s Able Sisters shop) and their outfits must be changed weekly. We hope that this social-focused challenge will add a unique touch to each individual and their island, and also make sharing and playing together even more interesting.
In addition to the fun rules, there are also many tasks that at first glance seem extremely daunting — more precisely, everything under the “Economic Rules”. For example, with selling crops, one of the most popular ways to make money, players can only grow them in a maximum of four 3×3 garden areas (which also requires watering every day). You can also only sell crops that are grown in groups of three, such as potatoes.
In addition, players are only allowed to sell fruit with a maximum of nine fruit trees and four coconut trees, making things more valuable and requiring more time to progress in the game. On top of that, you can only sell your items through the box at Nook’s, requiring players to wait until the next day to receive their money. Creator NintenTalk says they implemented these rules as a tribute to beloved farming and simulation games like Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons.
Finally, to add to the community aspect of this challenge, a feature called the “Sunday Flea Market” (a throwback to the weekend events of the same name in Wild World and City Folk) allows players to trade items with each other and get things they might need, without resorting to the islands with treasure or Nookazon.
Fans of the Animal Crossing series have been known to continue the fun years after updates and support have ended, often buying additional copies of the game to start brand new villages while preserving their originals. Unfortunately, New Horizons is designed in such a way that each Nintendo Switch system is limited to just one island — and that’s for the entire Switch device, not just individual user profiles.
For many dedicated islanders, the ACNH Hard Mode challenge will mean choosing between saying goodbye to their beloved islands to start over, or possibly considering buying an entirely separate Switch to start over.
Those of us who may be on the fanatical side — or have simply spent a lot of time writing guides for the game — may already have a few islands, with one spare for restarting in Hard Mode… If that happens to you, we by no means we condemn.
Hopefully, this refreshing new twist on an almost three-year-old game might prompt Nintendo to consider implementing some additional updates in the near future. Who knows? In the meantime, we’ll definitely be testing ACNH Hard Mode ourselves and enjoying a trip into our own island lives.
Interested in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Hard Mode challenge? Vote in our polls below to let us know if you’re participating and share your thoughts in the comments!
