Five Tips for Sharing an Island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch is a great game, though I’ve seen many people complain about how you can only have one island per console, especially those who have to share their Switch with multiple people (like us). While it is a bit disappointing, I don’t think that it has to be a deal-breaker. I’ve come up with a list of the five most helpful tips I could think of when it comes to sharing an island with multiple people.

1. Make it a family project

This game really does provide a great opportunity for everyone to get together and work on the fun project of building up an island as a family, so long as you make sure that everybody gets to voice their ideas and puts in an effort to making your island the best it can be for everyone involved. I highly recommend that you get your whole family (and/or whomever you’re sharing your island with) together as often as possible and do Party Play (via the Call Resident app on your Nookphone, unlocked as soon as at least one other person has set up their house on the island), since it makes sure that everyone gets a chance to give their input and to work on projects together when designing your island. Plus it’s just more fun that way!

2. Share your resources

If you have extra resources in your storage or your pockets that another player needs and you don’t, share with them! Or if you have lots of Bells and another player wants to purchase something that won’t be available the next day, give them a loan! Of course, you should also make sure that it never gets to where one player is doing all the giving while the other is doing all the taking. Try writing down what you loan a player and when to keep track and make sure things don’t get out of hand.

3. Be mindful of the others on your island

Don’t take someone else’s decorations and sell them without permission, and don’t purposely tell their favorite villager to leave. The Golden Rule is a very, very important thing to keep in mind when playing this game. Especially if you want to stay on speaking terms with whomever you’re sharing with.

4. Divide up the island

While I think that it would be ideal if everyone could all work together to build up their islands, I realize that it might not be a possibility for some people to do that. If you feel that things just wouldn’t be able to work out with treating your island like a family project, or if you’ve tried and found that not everyone was enjoying themselves, you could divide up your island and give each player their own section to work on like they would if they weren’t sharing the island with anyone else. You could put fencing, rivers, cliffs, custom designs, or anything else that could help you distinguish the borders of each player’s section and make sure that you don’t accidentally decorate/terraform somebody else’s section.

5. Keep things fair

No matter how you decide to view your island, try to make sure that things stay fair for everyone. I recommend that everyone be allowed to have at least one animal villager’s house that they get full control of (or at least as much control as the game allows). Meaning that only they can decide to kick out whoever moves into that house, and have everyone else ask their permission before they do something like changing their villager’s catchphrase or giving the villager an item that would affect their clothing/home décor, and if a player wants their villager someplace else on the island, the resident representative should move it for them (the player who wants their villager moved should still give them the Bells needed to move the house, though). You could also set aside certain fruit trees for each player to harvest from by labeling them with custom designs or by keeping them near their houses. I also suggest that once the resident representative unlocks the pole vault and ladder, that they craft one of each for each player, since it saves them from having to buy the recipe themselves and it doesn’t have to cost the resident representative anything other than the time it takes to make them, since the other players could supply the materials for their tools if necessary.

Ultimately I think that whether having to share an island is a strength or weakness of this game is up to the people playing it. I hope that you found these tips helpful and that they’ll make your experience with the game that much more enjoyable. If you have any other tips or advice that you’ve thought of while playing, feel free to share them in the comments below.