How to restart your game on Animal Crossing New Horizons
Dust yourself off and try again.
You can literally lose months and months in Animal Crossing New Horizons and making your virtual island the best that it can be is quite addictive - even just typing about the game makes us want to pick up our Nintendo Switch and start playing.
But there may come a time, for any number of reasons, where you look at your island and wish you could have a do-over. Well, you can as your whole game can be deleted and you can start afresh but, and this is important, you will lose everything including all your items so make sure you really want to do it before going ahead.
But if you are cool with that, and there is a way to save some of your items if you do something before deleting, then this is how to do it!
Buy Animal Crossing: New Horizons at GAME
How to restart Animal Crossing: New Horizons
So, there is not actually an in-game way to do this as the developers have opted not to have a restart option in the game menu. Presumably, this is to prevent someone from doing it by mistake and subsequently hurling their console across the room in a fit of rage.
Instead, you will have to manually delete all your saved game data so that your Switch will think you have never played the game before - this really is starting from scratch!
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Delete saved data in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Below are the steps to delete and start over in Animal Crossing: New Horizons but one more reminder - this is a permanent deletion and you can't restore the game to where you were with it once you have deleted it.
Read on below too for ways to save some of your items and any DIY recipes that you have not got around to learning yet.
Still want to go ahead? Well, this is what you need to do.
- Go to the Switch Home Screen
- Select System Settings
- Go to Data Management
- Choose Delete Save Data
- Select Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Select Delete All Save Data for this Software
- Now load up the game and you will be right back at the start. So you can choose your new island, your new character, your new island name, and everything else you did when you first started playing.
Read more:
- How to increase friendship in Animal Crossing New Horizons
- Animal Crossing's most popular villagers
- Animal Crossing Build-A-Bear range announced
Tips to save items and DIY recipes
As mentioned, deleting your game will lose you everything and that includes all items and DIY recipes you may have. You literally will be starting from scratch but there is a workaround for this that will mean you can get some of your things back - just make sure you have a friend in the game that you can trust!
Drop items on a Friend's Island first
Once you delete your game, you will lose all of your items and you will have to go through all the hoops you went through before to get them back - not ideal. Happily, there is a way around this and you just need a trusted friend who also has the game.
Visit their island and drop off any items that you want to keep there. Now when you start your new game, just re-add them as a friend and take a trip to their island to get all your stuff back!
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Hold off learning DIY recipes
It's a similar thing with DIY recipes. Make sure you don't learn them as the recipes will be gone once you do. Instead, take them with you when you drop off all the other items you want saved and pick them up when your new island and character are set up!
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