The Complete Guide to Getting Any Villager in New Horizons

by Doc – Owner, Founder, What Do You Mean Nobody Wants Coach?

You’re probably wanting a specific villager in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and aren’t happy with the ones you have – and you’re not alone by any stretch of the imagination. Everybody wants certain villagers in their town (called “dreamies”) and New Horizons is not the sort of game that makes it easy to pick and choose.

Fortunately, there’s three ways you can get the villager you want in New Horizons.

1. “Purchase” the villager from another player who has that villager ready to move out
2. “Grind” the villager using Nook Mile Tickets by visiting Mystery Islands over and over
3. Scan an amiibo card to get the villager to the campsite and persuade the villager to live on your island

Any villager that was introduced in New Horizons does not yet have an amiibo card, and the only way to obtain the Sanrio Villagers is through option #3.

Purchasing Villagers

Animal Crossing: New Leaf and New Horizons both have a mechanic in which villagers will decide to move out and have one full day where their home is packed up and ready to leave. During that day, other human players can visit the town, talk to the villager, and convince the villager to move to that player’s town instead.

This is the process:

1. Villager talks to the player of the town (let’s say it’s you in this case) saying that they want to move.
2. The next day, villager’s home is packed up with cardboard boxes.
3. You make a deal with someone online where they will visit your town to talk to your villager in return for Bells.
4. When the villager’s home is in boxes, the other player comes over and talks to the villager and convinces them to move to the other player’s town.
5. The next day, the villager is gone from your town but has appeared in the other player’s town, with an identical house, catchphrase and attire.

Villagers are typically purchased through Nookazon or online forums. Due to the fact that there’s only a 24-hour window in which a villager can be “bought”, I recommend that you check these forums frequently for your preferred villager.

Grind the Villager Through Mystery Islands

The only way to “select” villagers without external means is by grinding the villager through Mystery Islands. At the Nook Stop, players can spend 2,000 Nook Miles to obtain a Nook Mile Ticket. Players can then go to the seaport to exchange the Nook Mile Ticket for a Mystery tour island visit – and if the player has less than 10 villagers on their island, then a villager spawns on the island.

However, this method is tremendously slow and expensive. In fact, this is arguably more expensive than simply buying the villager from someone else. Consider the math on this – there’s 400 villagers in New Horizons. The likelihood that you’d first get an island with a villager and then get the exact villager that you want is about 1 in 400, or 0.25%. We would expect that your average cost would be 400 Nook Mile Tickets.

For comparison, the most expensive villager for trade, Raymond, is usually 200 Nook Mile Tickets on Nookazon. Why wouldn’t you buy one from someone else?

But if you still insist on doing it, here’s the process.

1. Buy Nook Mile Tickets from Nook Stop at 2,000 Nook Miles each.
2. Go to the seaport and select the “I wanna fly!” option, then “I wanna visit other places”. Orville will ask about your Nook Mile Ticket, and you tell him you want to use it. Make sure you have an empty house plot on your island.
3. When visiting the island, look for the single house. Go inside and see if the villager is there – if not, look around the island for them.
4. If they’re the villager you want, congratulations! Talk to them and convince them to come to your island. If not, go back to the seaport and try again.

You’ll probably run out of Nook Mile Tickets pretty quickly unless you bought them from someone else. Fortunately, with some advance planning you can stock up pretty quickly.

How to Get Nook Mile Tickets Easily

When you kick out your villager in preparation for Villager Grinding (sometimes called Island Hopping), sell them on Nookazon. Even the least popular villagers can get you at least 10 Nook Mile Tickets, which is better than nothing.

Alternatively, you might sell them for Bells and then use the Bells to buy Nook Mile Tickets. You’ll usually have better returns with currency arbitrage than if you just “converted” the villager straight to Nook Mile Tickets.

The 100% Foolproof Way to Get (Almost) Any Villager in New Horizons – amiibo Cards

Over the years, Nintendo has put out a lot of Animal Crossing amiibo cards. We’ve got guides on how to make your own, but we’re assuming you’ve already got the card of the villager you want in some form or another.

You’re going to bring the villager to your town via the campsite. Bear in mind this only works if there’s nobody in your campsite on that day, and if you have less than 10 villagers in your town.

To bring an amiibo to the campsite, you must:

1. Build the campsite (obviously)
2. Go to the Nook Stop, select Invite Amiibo Camper
3. Scan in the amiibo using the Right Joy-Con or equivalent controller

If you’re not familiar with how the campsite works, follow this guide to get a more specific idea of what you’re doing once they’re scanned in.

And that’s it! Those are the three ways to get any villager in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.