“Buh-bye, Judy! You’re worth a lot more to me gone!”
By far the most frequent question I see about Animal Crossing: New Horizons is “How the heck do I get rid of Barold, ugh!!” Seriously, look up Barold. I can’t believe that exists.
Anyway, I have found a reliable way to get rid of unwanted villagers in Nintendo’s runaway quarantine hit. Sure, it sort of flies in the face of the wholesome island getaway simulator vibe, but you gotta do what you gotta do. No, it is not about hitting villagers over the head with your bug nets or other blunt objects. Pushing them around isn’t viable, either. Why? Because it seems like the game counts their angry dialogue as having interacted with you, which some players have suggested increases the likelihood of their not being picked randomly to think about leaving every fortnight or so. If that theory is true, then there’s a hidden mechanic that creates probabilities for each villager leaving but skews it based on friendship levels with them, which are indeed affected by conversing with them.
So your best bet is to simply ignore them, but this can take quite a long time, if indeed it’s still fundamentally random. After all, even though I’d blocked off Carmen’s house like I’d read about online and refused to acknowledge her milquetoast existence on my island, she didn’t ask to leave whereas Snake, one of my favorite villagers who I talked to often and gifted all kinds of awesome and expensive furniture to on a daily basis, Snake, what the heck, man… he asked to leave three times in a row (seems like it is random).
This is where time-traveling comes in. If you have the stomach for it, then you probably already know about it. Just pray it’s more like Chrono Trigger stopping evil entities from existing rather than like Chrono Cross where you’re paying for your meddling mistakes. If you’re against time-traveling, then you’re essentially going to be playing the same game but it will just take longer.
“Don’t forget to text now and then! Here’s my number.” *secretly changes last digit*
Here’s the process I used to reliably get unwanted villagers to ask about leaving as frequently as possible in as short a time as possible:
- Begin with your Switch clock synchronized to the current time and day.
- With ACNH closed, open the game and begin playing.
- Double-check your villagers to see if anybody is thinking about leaving.
- Save and end your game, then when ACNH returns to the title screen, go to the Switch’s home screen and close the application.
- Adjust your Switch clock ahead by 15 days.
- Return to ACNH and again check to see if anybody is thinking about leaving. One of your villagers should be (look for their head down with a thought bubble above them, occasionally mumbling to themselves).
- If you see this and it is a villager that you don’t want to leave, talk with them and tell them to stay, then save and end, adjust your clock back to the current time and start again from #2.
OR
If it is a villager you want to go, talk with them and tell them to leave. Save and end. If you adjust the clock ahead by 1 more day, then they will be “in boxes”, packed and ready to go. If you adjust the clock ahead by 1 more day again, they will be gone and their lot will be empty. This is when you can recruit new villagers to your island.
Too many jocks.
Good luck evicting unwanted villagers!
As for what I did with the bodies… just don’t fish in my river.
Final population: Snake, Zucker, Octavian, Lucky, Coco, Ribbot, Knox, Ankha, Genji, Marina.
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.
