Mythbuster: Will time traveling be possible in New Horizons?

I’ve read it numerous times on this forum, on Twitter, and Reddit : Nintendo will make it impossible to time travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. So much so that some people now take it for granted. But is it really true? Will we be able to time travel in the next big mainline Animal Crossing game? Here are the facts.

Here are a few sentences I’ve read regarding this particular topic.

The Nintendo Switch has an internal clock that you can set to a different time if you so wish

Fact:
TRUE

Yup. Just like the GameCube, the Wii, or the 3DS before it, the Nintendo Switch has an internal clock that can be tinkered with to trick Animal Crossing in ? thinking ? you are playing at another time than the one you are actually playing it. So, in essence, the setup for time travelling is still present for New Horizons.

Nintendo said time travelling will not be possible in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Fact:
FALSE

Nintendo or the Animal Crossing team never, ever said time travelling will be made impossible in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Since autosave is now a feature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it will make time travelling impossible.

Fact:
FALSE

Aya Kyogoku (director of Animal Crossing) did confirm at E3 2019 that autosave was now a feature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. What that means is the game will save your progress at a regular pace, and the player will not be obliged to go to sleep for the game to save. But, that does not mean it’s impossible for a player to time travel. It just makes it trickier.

Why? Because in previous Animal Crossing games, the player was holding the key to saving his progress. The player was responsible for saving (go to sleep or press start). It made time travelling easy: if you did not like the outcome of time traveling days, weeks or even years in advance, you could always quit without saving. It might be more difficult in New Horizons due to the fact that saving is done automatically by the game. Depending on how frequently the game autosaves, it might be a risk you do not want to take (if for example you don’t want a particular villager to move out or if you don’t want to lose your precious hybrid flowers). Nonetheless, if the autosave function of New Horizons is anything like in Breath of the Wild, the game might keep a few autosaves files before deleting them.

Since Nintendo chose to make time traveling impossible in New Horizons, Mr Resetti has to find a new job

Fact:
FALSE

That’s innacurate. I suspect the Chinese whispers syndrom on this particular one. True, Mr Resetti will change jobs in New Horizons, but it’s not because time travelling will be made impossible. Mr Resetti’s job was not to impede players from time travelling. No. Mr Resetti’s job was to remind the player that he needs to save before quitting the game. The introduction of the autosave feature caused Mr Resetti to lose his job. This does not have anything to do with time travelling !

So I hope this clears up this question. Feel free to comment this post or tell me if you plan on time traveling. I will not travel in time, if you ask me

I think it's highly likely that Nintendo will keep time traveling in ACNH. In the worst case scenario for time travelers, they could potentially remove the functionality to adjust the clock in the game itself, but that would only mean that it'd instead tie into the Switch's clock system.

I'm entirely against time traveling in Animal Crossing, as I feel it takes away a lot of gameplay through instant gratification. I personally feel, since the game is entirely built around real-time, it's borderline cheating to time travel. With that said though, I also feel people should be able to do what they want with the game they pay for, so I wouldn't really support Nintendo going through any hoops to ensure people can't adjust the clock if they so choose. That's not even factoring those who need to adjust the clock if they travel, the clock somehow goes inaccurate, etc. which creates a need for time adjustment to remain in the game.

It's nice to see that this topic gets cleared up now, I couldn't imagine the whole time that they would remove time traveling from the game. For me, it's a nice little option if I want to do more but I can't do anything anymore in the current time. Besides, I also only travel a bit forward and make sure not jump too much through time to mess up my town. It doesn't ruin the fun for me at all, instead it makes the game even more interesting at this point. But of course I do understand those people who prefer to play in the normal time and actually, one of my goal for New Horizons is to do not too often time traveling and try to enjoy the game as much as possible without it.

The Switch has an adjustable clock so yes, you can time-travel. But they could make it like in Pokemon, that when you do, the activities of that day don't reset until 24 real hours went by. But I don't think they will do that because it hasn't been that case since the gamecube version of the game. Animal Crossing is all about freedom and playing how you like it yourself. I'll try and not time travel myself tho.

I wonder if we will recieve punishment for TTing or some sort of penalty?
I also wonder if they'll introduce a brand new NPC to be the one to do this or they'll bring one back? (๑?⌓︎?๑)

I doubt Time Travel will be removed. If they remove it from ingame, we will need to adjust it over the system, aka it is more of a waste of time than it being blocked.
And if they block it completely by forcing the time detected via the Wi-Fi and the local time... I feel bad for those that might not have time in the day and can only play around the night in the game.
I myself don't intend to time travel much. Most will be adjusting time on workdays if I feel like I need to play with some sunshine than the dark.

I would be very disappointed if they removed it, but I don’t think they will. I work the whole day and don’t get home until around 8 pm Est. I usually adjust the time to be able to play during the day when the shops and such are open. I know there was a night owl ordinance, however I much rather used the beautiful town, so I had to rely in time traveling.

I like the idea of the auto save feature, but would much rather have cloud save so I could access the same town on more than one Switch. Without it, I'm not a Switch Lite buyer.

Preventing time travel is 100% impossible unless the game runs off an online server. I'm really tired of explaining this.

"Time manipulation" refers to going back to older saves, and is a poor translation between Japanese and English.

really the only reason i time travel is for villagers and to horde money. So like if it was phased out, I'd be ok so long as I finally have fun control on who leaves and stays on my island

In New Leaf you could change the time through your internal clock, but you could also change the time (and date) inside the game so it could differ from your internal clock. Personally I changed the time inside the game to suit my schedule (because the town ordinance wasn't enough), and I don't think they'd want to take that away.

In the past they've always discouraged time travelling with some sort of negative consequences, but they've never made the effort to get rid of it. I don't see a reason why they would start now, but I wouldn't be surprised either. In my opinion they would much sooner make time travelling pointless, like you could only do something again after 24 hours no matter what your internal clock says. Like mobile games.

It's really a moot point for me, as I don't time travel. RL is hectic enough that I have always enjoyed the slower pace of the AC games. And if I do happen to miss something because I'm at work or otherwise occupied? Well, that's what life is like, and I make due.

That's just how I like to play, so if you are able to make time travelling work for you, have at it. We all have our own styles.

Romaki said:

In New Leaf you could change the time through your internal clock, but you could also change the time (and date) inside the game so it could differ from your internal clock. Personally I changed the time inside the game to suit my schedule (because the town ordinance wasn't enough), and I don't think they'd want to take that away.

In the past they've always discouraged time travelling with some sort of negative consequences, but they've never made the effort to get rid of it. I don't see a reason why they would start now, but I wouldn't be surprised either. In my opinion they would much sooner make time travelling pointless, like you could only do something again after 24 hours no matter what your internal clock says. Like mobile games.

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If they make them like the app games I would hate it. I didn’t like pocket camp. They did this real time clock thing in the Sims game app as well, and I hated it. I hope the time features are similar to new leaf.

I hope not. I wish they'd make it completely impossible to time travel as I feel it goes against the spirit of the game. Time travelling is simply forbidden for me; it just spoils the game.

Thanks for the rundown on these. Personally, I'm not sure if I would go through the trouble if it really is made quite tricky. I wonder if I feel the need to time travel; it really depends on the mechanics in place and if the overall experience is fun without it. Anyway, I'm sure someone will find a way to do it even if there are some restrictions or hurdles in place

JKDOS said:

Preventing time travel is 100% impossible unless the game runs off an online server. I'm really tired of explaining this.

"Time manipulation" refers to going back to older saves, and is a poor translation between Japanese and English.

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Yeahhh I feel like at this point it shouldn't be worried about. The issue isn't with time-traveling, it's when the time gets manipulated in a way to bring back an old save (like when you play online).

I don’t see a way of them removing time travel. Since you can change the switch’s clock. I don’t see a reason for them to remove it either.

I don't think they ever mentioned anything about time traveling not being possible? So I'm sure its a rumor.
With all the AC games, there's an in game clock that you are allowed to change that probably will return in NH. Plus idk why they would want to remove it in the first place. It's not really a threat. I personally don't do it often so I wouldn't mind if these rumors are true but eh. I don't think yall should worry about this since it is all speculation.

This should really be a thread of its own, but I'll put it here for now.

First, let's understand the basics.

1. The game runs off real time. 1 minute in real life = 1 minute in Animal Crossing.
2. Time doesn't stop when you stop playing the game. Whether you play Smash Bros, or turn off your switch completely, the time in your Animal Crossing game will reflect the real life time change when you start it up.
Example: If you stop playing your switch for a month, and then start playing Animal Crossing again, the in game date will be a month later.
3. Animal Crossing is an off-line game.


Now that we have the basics, we can easily explain why preventing time travel is impossible.

1. There is no such thing as magic. Since the game runs off real world time, it needs a mechanism to sync time. As stated in Basics #3, the game runs offline, therefore no Nintendo or Government time server will be relied upon for managing this.
This means the game without a doubt will sync to your system clock. Whether or not the game will have an ingame clock is unknown, but regardless, won't affect one's ability to "Time Travel"

2. Since time can pass whether your switch is on or off, or whether or not you're actually playing the game, there is no way the game can tell if you changed time. The game's only purpose is to sync the time from when you last played, to the now current time on the switch.


Based on the first 2 reasons above, it should not be possible to stop time travel. But, let's pretend it was possible, while still keeping the game offline. Let's discuss the problems this would cause:

1. Players are forced into the wrong time should they move to different time zones, or if they experience daylights saving, or if the state outlaws daylights savings.
2. Players are forced into the wrong time should somekind of glitch/bug with their switch cause it to get the wrong time. Yes this isn't very rare for electronics, so it can happen.
3. In such a magical world where this is possible, Nintendo may have to sell games locked to every single region, so that players from California don't have the same game time as players in say New York. This ensures Their games are locked the the exact time of where they live.


Here's the deal. It's 100% impossible to stop it. The game doesn't run on 1 central server, and it does not have fake in-game days like Skyrim or Stardew valley. It runs off real world time.
When you start the game for the first time, it will be sync'd to the current time, and is possible the game, as it always has, will double check with you via in game character, if the current time is correct. After setting the time, the game will from then on use the system clock to determine how much time has passed, and reflect that with the ingame time.


This is a rough draft, there is more I can add, but this should be enough to get us started.

Final verdict: Time Travel will remain possible.

The worst-case scenario for time travelers is if the autosave function automatically saves your game immediately after it simulates the world and loads the game. This would make any effects of time travel permanent, such as a villager moving out. I'm not sure they will go that far, it really depends on how the autosave works. It might only autosave when you go in and out of a building, or it might work more like Breath of the Wild where a massive number of different triggers cause autosave, like picking up an item, dropping an item, selling an item, buying an item, eating an item, and so on.

- - - Post Merge - - -

JKDOS said:

...
Final verdict: Time Travel will remain possible.

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All of this is true however it can be easily detected like Tomodachi Life did. No one is saying they will make it impossible, but should they choose, they can make it not worth your time. Resetting on the GameCube was such a chore that I never wanted to do it to manipulate the RNG, because Resetti's rants are incredibly long and annoying. You can detect time travel by looking for significant differentials in an internal counter the console has. Most clocks have an internal counter that always moves forward, and if your game time has shifted in such a way that does not match with that internal counter, they can detect time traveling. I suspect this is why Tomodachi Life would think you time traveled when you inserted it into a different 3DS: the internal counter of the real time clock did not match yours. The internal clock is arbitrary and is "seconds since watch battery was inserted," essentially.

Another thing they could do is prevent you from visiting other towns (or having visitors over) if your console time is not reasonably synchronized with the real world time.

Quite frankly I don't think Nintendo is that interested in punishing time travel, so I don't think they will do much to punish it. New Leaf even had villagers spreading rumors of you being a time traveler, so I think they just detect it and make it part of the gameplay and move on.