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How to time travel - Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Grab your Tardis and learn how to time travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Josh Hawkins

March 20, 2020 1:02 PM

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Time traveling is an old trick in the world of Animal Crossing, and those who have spent hours in any of the previous entries of the series will be more than accustomed to jumping around through the days. Of course, you’ll still need to be careful – as time travel can come with a great price if you aren’t careful. That being said, this guide will teach you all you need to know to time travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

How to time travel - Animal Crossing: New Horizons

We’ve all been there. You’re waiting on your house to build, or waiting on Blathers to appear, and it’s just taking too long. Or maybe you ordered something from the Nook Shop and you’re waiting on it to be mailed out to you. No matter what the deal is, those who don’t feel like waiting won’t have to feel bad about being impatient.

You can also play Animal Crossing: New Horizons with friends.

Like previous entries in the series, Animal Crossing: New Horizons works off of realtime. As such, this can be manipulated by changing the time on your Nintendo Switch. To get started time traveling, exit Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

With the game completely closed down, head to your Switch Settings.

From here, head down to System.

Once in System, open up the Date and Time section. Tick off the Synchronize Clock via Internet option and then manually change the day and time.

Now return to Animal Crossing: New Horizons to find that a day (or two days, or however many days you moved forward) have passed.

As mentioned above, time traveling can be very handy. But it can also be very dangerous. Going too far ahead in time will have your villagers act as if you haven’t been around for however many days, weeks, or months you jump forward. It can also cause villagers to leave your island if you stay gone too long and will even result in the weeds around your island growing up pretty badly. As such, be careful when using time travel, and remember that events will require you to synchronize your clock via the internet to take part.

Now that you know how to time travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, head back over to our New Horizons guide hub for even more handy info.

Josh Hawkins

Guides Editor

Joshua holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has been exploring the world of video games for as long as he can remember. He enjoys everything from large-scale RPGs to small, bite-size indie gems and everything in between.