After 2,000 Hours, This Animal Crossing Player Has Perfectly Replicated Their New Leaf Town In New Horizons

Published Apr 1, 2025

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A devoted Animal Crossing fan perfectly re-created their Animal Crossing: New Leaf town on their Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. The process took over 2,000 hours spanning multiple profiles.

justplainrii took to Reddit to share comparison photos of their New Leaf town and New Horizons island, going so far as to ensure matching date and time stamps between the games. Commenters were fascinated by the dedication to accuracy and the visual demonstration of what changed between the two games, both in game mechanics, music, and graphics.

Of their impressive achievement, justplainrii said, "I hope you all enjoy the pictures and the dream! I've played this game since day one of release, but I'm still finding ways to improve my island." According to the post, the recreation has spanned nearly 2,400 hours in New Horizons, and has required eight profiles so that player character houses can be used as stand-ins for buildings that were dropped from New Leaf.

Exploring This New Leaf Recreation

A Birthday Celebration For The Ages

The attention to detail poured into justplainrii's reconstruction is immense, with landscaping, buildings, and interiors all matching the player's original New Leaf town. Forced perspective was utilized to scale some of the designs created for the updated version, including animal-themed decorations and fixtures that represent villagers from New Leaf. The plans on filming a more detailed tour of the island for YouTube in the future and provided their New Horizons Dream Code, "DA-3073-6416-1620," so other players can check it out.

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Justplainrii said that while they started the rebuilding process some time ago, they were motivated to finish it in honor of ACNH's birthday back on March 20. To ensure the utmost accuracy, the player even got out their old 3Ds to both reference and take screenshots of their village. Other fans of the game were quick to praise their work, with many saying they felt nostalgic for New Leaf's structured town setup compared to New Horizon's more carefree, island life.

Animal Crossing Allows For Lots Of Creativity

Relaxed Play & Limitless Possibilities Appeal To Fans

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has become the cozy-game poster child, and for good reason. Cozy games may actually benefit your mental health, with high-stakes storylines traded for simple planting and fishing, and drama-filled personal interactions replaced with cute, scripted conversations. While New Horizons hasn't seen any new content since 2021, the game's customizability and the community around it keep it going strong even now.

Animal Crossing has long been cherished by its fans, and has reached new heights on the Nintendo Switch. The latest game has been a tremendous success, and such freedom of expression through gameplay is sure to carry on to any future installments. The love for Animal Crossing isn't going anywhere, and with the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, fans are looking towards the future of the franchise.