Over twenty years and five mainline Animal Crossing games, there have only been eight personality types for a massive roster of over 400 Villagers. Though Animal Crossing games don’t tend to mix things up, the next sequel in the series would be better served by adding new personality types or creating subdivisions of existing ones, especially after New Horizons' lackluster Villagers made for boring gameplay with their repetitive dialogue.

Only Animal Crossing games up to New Leaf. Those personalities are known in English as normal, peppy, lazy, cranky, jock, and snooty, while the two new types are sisterly and smug. The latest title, New Horizons, included a vast range of Villagers for players to meet, but each one had essentially the same dialogue despite their different personalities, which made for a repetitively grating experience.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Proved How Repetitive Villagers Can Be

The Latest In The Series Came Out in Spring 2020

The most recent title in the Animal Crossing series, New Horizons, proved how limiting the number of personality types are due to how repetitive every Villager is. Even after building a relationship with a Villager of any personality type, their dialogue will remain mostly the same, which is both unrewarding and annoying for long-term players. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, every personality type was watered down to only marginally different dialogue since most of the Villagers were nicer than ever.

For example, jock Villagers might mention trying to lift weights or racing around the island, but they’ll still repeat the same sentiments as all other personality types. The “different” personalities are a surface-level trait since all Villagers act the same. Even significantly different personality types in Animal Crossing, like snooty and sisterly Villagers, will always give similar responses when players speak to them.

While the obvious answer to improving this problem would be to add more dialogue trees and design a different friendship system, the best way to refresh the series would be to add more personalities to the next sequel.

This issue is unique to New Horizons, as earlier games allowed Villagers to be more outright mean to the player before eventually warming up to them through consistent interaction and gift-giving. Still, it highlights the issue of such a small pool of personalities already being too similar. While the obvious answer to improving this problem would be to add more dialogue trees and design a different friendship system, the best way to refresh the series would be to add more personalities to the next sequel.

More Personality Types Would Refresh Villagers

A Sequel Could Mix Things Up For Standard Villagers

If Nintendo doesn’t want their Animal Crossing Villagers to have the same bite as previous entries in the series, as earlier Villagers could be outright mean to the player, then the best change would be to add a broader range of personality types to help spice up the in-game dialogue. Ideally, Villagers would go back to having their slightly rude responses to ugly gifts, but if that’s not possible, then the sequel to New Horizons should expand the Villager types or at least add sub-personalities to pre-existing ones.

Some fun new personality types could be creative, intellectual, or gamer Villagers. Creative types could be split into subcategories for different pursuits, like Villagers who love painting, baking, or writing. Intellectual Villagers, similar to jocks, could always ramble on about the latest book they read or an experiment they just started in their kitchen. Gamer Villagers could also be similar to jocks, but instead, they always mention speed running or earning achievements.

Better Villager Interaction Should Be A Priority For The Next Game

Villagers Are The Most Important Part Of Any Animal Crossing Title

Another Animal Crossing game, though not yet announced, seems likely due to the massive success of New Horizons. While there have been some rumors about what the next title could look like, there hasn’t been any official information from Nintendo. While any sequel will certainly have a lot on its plate to follow up New Horizons, expanding and improving Villager interaction is one way any new title could easily one-up New Horizons.

Increasing the personality types available for Villagers and giving them larger dialogue trees would go a long way in improving the day-to-day experience of another Animal Crossing game. The next Animal Crossing game should prioritize improving every aspect of Villagers, especially considering how important Villagers are to every aspect of gameplay. Being able to interact with Villagers, like dancing or high-fiving, would add a lot to the game, while better dialogue that allows a Villager to warm up to players and become friends over time would make any sequel more rewarding.