The Villagers Moving Out System Throughout The Games

[Shawna]

I figured I'd make sort of an analysis thread on how each mainline Animal Crossing game. This covers specifically villagers moving out, not in your town/on your island. These are from best to worst.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
So far, New Horizons handles villagers moving out the best. They cannot leave without letting you know beforehand, whereas in NH's predecessors, they could leave without saying a word, should you take an extended break from the game. That way, players don't have to feel forced to play almost everyday, just to make sure their favorite villager(s) don't move out. Not to mention, villagers you have a higher friendship with were less likely to ask to move. Conversely, villagers who you had a low friendship with are more likely the ones to want to move. I still think it would be nice to have a "lock in" feature where your favorite villagers wouldn't ask to begin with, but this is at least a step into the right direction. ^.^
Also, as far as I know, villagers will always agree to stay if you decline their decision to move. There is one installment that is atrocious about this, which I will be getting into.

Animal Crossing: Wild World
I know. You are probably shocked to see this in the #2 best spot. Believe me, I would have placed Wild World a lot lower, if it wasn't for this one trick to lock villagers in (which I will get into).

Yes, it's true. The way this game handles villagers moving out is an absolute dumpster fire. A villagers will just randomly appear in boxes every few days, there is no consideration of friendships/how you treat the villager, and it can take A LOT of patience just to get them to stay. >_<
HOWEVER, there is this one trick that I had the luck of stumbling upon online: What you have to do is, half-complete a delivery task, preferably with an alternate player villager. This will lock in both villagers. For example, I wanted to lock Apollo in my WildWorld town, so I don't ever have to worry about logging on, only to find him in boxes. So, what I did was...I created an alt player character and used it to talk to Apollo until he gave me a delivery task. He had me deliver something to Kody, so I did just that. But I did not go back and talk to Apollo. I just stopped using said character. So far, Apollo and Kody haven't even thought about moving, and this has been since late January to early February. This could be done with your main character too, but I would personally advise against it, so you don't get locked out of doing other favors for the villager, or accidentally let the villager you want to keep know that you delivered the package/letter (since they won't be locked in anymore, and you would have to try and get another delivery favor from them). I am not sure if deleting the alt character will keep the villagers locked in or not, so I would recommend keeping it, even if it takes up a player slot.
This trick is a godsend, so much so, that I am ranking Wild World second best in terms of the moving out system/keeping dream villagers.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf
This game is very random with selecting which villagers move out. If anything, I heard a lot of people complain that the villagers they like the most and are best friends with, are mostly the ones that try to move out. On the bright side, villagers will always agree to stay, and Amiibo villagers usually do not ask to move, unless your town has villagers that were most/all from you scanning them in with their Amiibo card.

However, on a most negative side of things, unless you scanned in the villager via Amiibo, the villager can just move out with no warning if you time travel, go on hiatus, etc. causing players to have to feel like they have to force themselves to play, even during breaks, just to make sure their dreamies stay, which can be stressful.

Animal Crossing: Game Cube
The moving out system in this game is very unclear. There have been theories that even I can debunk. For example, some people have say that only your 14th and 15th villagers move out. However I can debunk this since I lost Blaire and Nate, who were both in the 1st-13th range. I have even lost two starters: Purrl and Rex.

Thankfully, I do not know if this is true (though I haven't been able to debunk this yet thankfully), but while villagers are very abrupt about moving out in this version, I have heard that the game actually considers friendships: The ones you ignore are likely to move out, where the villagers you are closer to are likely to stay. Again, I can neither confirm or debunk this yet, but that would be awesome.

For now, the GameCube version gets the #2 worst spot, due to the abruptness of the move-outs. Thanks to the possibly true theory about this game considering friendships though, I decide to give the #1 worst spot to...

Animal Crossing: City Folk
This version is very messy about villagers moving out. In fact, after careful consideration, I can say this game does it the worst out of the five mainline games. This game does NOT consider friendships. The game just picks villagers randomly. You could have villagers who you barely befriend, yet they never ping you that they are planning to move, while your BFFs/dreamies may multiple times. The worst part? They may not always agree to stay...causing people to have to go through a much of rigmarole to get them to stay, only for them to not to....yeah, it's pretty messy in this game.

But yeah, I figured I would just do a bit of an analysis ranking for villagers moving out. What games which you guys say handled move outs the best? The worst?

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

A topic that's been periodically ruminating in my head for quite a while, now. This thing was never handled all too well in this series. A large part is Nintendo's own stubbornness to actually learn from their bloody mistakes, of course. I think it'd just be easier if I addressed every point you made, then summarize my feelings about this mechanic.

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Responses

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
So far, New Horizons handles villagers moving out the best. They cannot leave without letting you know beforehand, whereas in NH's predecessors, they could leave without saying a word, should you take an extended break from the game. Not to mention, villagers you have a higher friendship with were less likely to ask to move. Conversely, villagers who you had a low friendship with are more likely the ones to want to move. I still think it would be nice to have a "lock in" feature where your favorite villagers wouldn't ask to begin with, but this is at least a step into the right direction. ^.^
Also, as far as I know, villagers will always agree to stay if you decline their decision to move. There is one installment that is atrocious about this, which I will be getting into.

Emboldened this part because I believe this is where the issue others, such as myself, have with how NH does this. I feel this gives players way too much sway, when these animals are their own people; not our pets. It was annoying that they could just storm out of your town in previous games without saying anything, but this could've been remedied by there being some sort of notification on the Nintendo Switch Online app installed on your phone as a means of contacting you directly — something akin to a text, without having absolute control over who stays on your island.

That way, players don't have to feel forced to play almost everyday, just to make sure their favorite villager(s) don't move out.

New Leaf allowed villagers to specify dates in which they'll leave town (five days, and ten days with the Welcome amiibo update installed); other villagers would notify the player of this (though it's a bit daft you can't do anything with this information, except have said leaving villager ping you, which I'll delve more into once I get the chance). I never felt as though I had to play the game every day just to make sure my villagers stayed. It's on a true handheld system — one that isn't a hybrid, and the ten-day time-limit was quite generous, considering how the other games dealt with this element. Now, that, was a step in the right direction.

I still think it would be nice to have a "lock in" feature where your favorite villagers wouldn't ask to begin with...

Hard pass on this. I'll explain why in my summary.

Animal Crossing: Wild World
I know. You are probably shocked to see this in the #2 best spot.

I was definitely surprised, given how obnoxious it was to see villagers packing on a near constant basis. I would even argue it's just as horrible with its implementation as the first game and its ports were.

Believe me, I would have placed Wild World a lot lower, if it wasn't for this one trick to lock villagers in (which I will get into).

*precedes to demonstrate a personal example of said trick involving a delivering task involving two villagers and two player characters which lasted from late Jan. - early Feb.

This really seems more trouble than it's worth. I'll probably just stick to endlessly pleading for my boxed villagers to stay until I get a response that appears to be an "Okay", rather than a "I'll think about it" or a flat-out "No". It could take A LOT of tries just to get the former one. One particularly idiotic thing about villagers leaving in WW is that no matter how you treated them — you could treat them like bleeding royalty, and they'll be happy to give you a picture of them (a once-per-player event), but as soon as they leave, it was possible for them to rudely rebuff you and/or your town for no apparent reason, and you're suddenly glad they're gone. As far as I'm aware, this doesn't happen ANYWHERE ELSE but in this installment.

This is a bit of an aside, but it just amazes me how no matter how you treat villagers in these supposedly LIFE-SIMULATORS, the dialogue does JACK ALL to reflect something that isn't purely situational. Blows my mind how not a single person seems to notice this being a drawback in EVERY Animal Crossing game. Ruder villagers from previous games still hated you; nicer villagers from newer games still want to hang out with you, regardless of what happens. And good grief, the dialogue quality (especially the localizations) in this series is all over the place. Tangent over.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf
This game is very random with selecting which villagers move out.

This is true for past entries, as well.

If anything, I heard a lot of people complain that the villagers they like the most and are best friends with, are mostly the ones that try to move out.

This, too, was a problem with prior games. It doesn't help that, as with almost everything else in these games, it's poorly-communicated to the player. Nintendo doesn't make good use of diegetic game design when it comes to Animal Crossing, so it's no wonder this had everyone confused — that it all just seems so damn random.

However, on a most negative side of things, unless you scanned in the villager via Amiibo, the villager can just move out with no warning if you time travel, go on hiatus, etc. causing players to have to feel like they have to force themselves to play, even during breaks, just to make sure their dreamies stay, which can be stressful.

Again, this game has an actual time-limit of when a villager is about to leave, so it's not vague as it is CF and it isn't abrupt in first two game, either. And another fact that this is on a small device you can take anywhere, so it shouldn't be any issue to just put the system in Sleep Mode by closing it, and coming back within the next few hours, or even the next day to hear any rumors of someone thinking about leaving your town.

My biggest issue with NL's method is that villagers tell you about someone else skipping town, but you, as the Mayor, can't even talk to that person about it until they ping you. That makes no sense.

Seriously, why not just have the option for players to ping villagers, too? Would that be a hard mechanic to program? You could have loads more dialogue with just this one thing. Or how about properly informing the player on how pinging works? Instead of having villagers just give out useless, disposable information on stuff the player would probably already know about within the first few hours of starting their town (like looking looking UP), and STILL dulling out this SAME dumb pointless dialogue which should have given during those first few hours, and NOT YEARS AFTER THE FACT (they did this in previous games, too, and they STILL don't know when to knock this **** off; ****), maybe, just ****ING MAYBE, STOP doing that, and actually tutorialize things people would have to look online otherwise to explain what the thing is? Another digression, but it's topics like these that validate my suspicion that Nintendo just DOESN'T learn from mistakes, and the way THIS system has been handled throughout the years is a prime example of this point.

Animal Crossing: Game Cube
The moving out system in this game is very unclear. There have been theories that even I can debunk.

Not unclear; just poorly-misunderstood, due to what I laid out earlier in how Nintendo doesn't want the player to have a solid comprehension about how things work, not even from a gradual perspective. Therefore, a wiki might have a more accurate and elaborate explanation about this.

Thankfully, I do not know if this is true (though I haven't been able to debunk this yet thankfully), but while villagers are very abrupt about moving out in this version, I have heard that the game actually considers friendships:

Time to put this rumor to bed for good. There is no detectable measurement of "Friendship" because it didn't exist until the game was retranslated and re-released (for the third time) in Japan as Doubutsu no Mori e+, so these people probably have the Western version confused with that particular Japanese exclusive. So, it's ONLY true in one of the three Japanese versions, one of which is just the NA version translated back to the original Japanese language. Look up the Animal Forest e+ sub-section of that link to get more info out of it. It works more akin to later entries than the others versions.

Ironically enough, when I started my AFe+ town, Mitzi was the first villager I ever talked to. The very next day, even though my Japanese knowledge was (and sadly still is) extremely limited at the time, I could tell she was talking about leaving. Of course, she's still in my town after all this time, but I don't think we had more than six villagers during the inital phase, so it was weird for her to even tell me this the day AFTER I created my town. Villagers don't start evacuating until the "15 Villagers Living in Town" quota is filled. There's a loophole here, in which once a villager leaves, and another replaces said villager, you could completely ignore that newest villager to prevent any more from leaving. I believe I have video evidence, but given how long this is, I don't feel like posting it, at the moment. It's how I've been able to keep my favorites.

Thanks to the possibly true theory about this game considering friendships...

Only true for one version — one that's in Japanese.

Animal Crossing: City Folk
This version is very messy about villagers moving out.

All of these games are.

This game does NOT consider friendships. The game just picks villagers randomly. You could have villagers who you barely befriend, yet they never ping you that they are planning to move, while your BFFs/dreamies may multiple times.

This happened in the previous two games, and wasn't an uncommon occurrence. WW did no such thing to consider any "Friendship" system, and it wasn't even implemented in any version of the first game that wasn't DnMe+ before then. So, CF has the same issue every other game before it had. Once again, it's the result of Nintendo's sloppy implementation and lack of care.

The worst part? They may not always agree to stay...causing people to have to go through a much of rigmarole to get them to stay, only for them to not to....

This exact scenario happened with Static, and it was a shame, because I enjoyed the Cranky Squirrel far better than I enjoyed Moose living in my town when there was already Rod, who is also the same species and personality as Moose.

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Conclusion
I don't care much for ranking things, and while it's certainly not as ideal as I would've liked it to be, I prefer NL's approach to this, for the reasons given above. Nintendo finally added some improvements to it without giving the player full domain of their villagers' lives. Maybe the time-limit should've been two weeks. Maybe villagers asking to leave should have been less frequent. Maybe there should've been a way to communicate to the player which villager was leaving when the game wasn't being played at the moment. These could have all been improved in NH, but instead, it looked at the original game, and decided to do the inverse. They would leave without any preparation, and not tell you a single thing, but now, they can just stay there forever.

I really don't understand people who complain about how "punishing" this system was. It was awful, poorly-misunderstood (because it was NEVER explained in-game), and implemented lazily, but it was never punishing. This idea that villagers just leaving without your input is somehow a "punishment" is such a stupid argument to make, because it misses the point it's trying to convey. These characters are their own people, with their own lives, and just like IRL, they won't always be with you forever, so you might as well cherish the ones you do care about in your vicinity. The fact that one day, these characters will be gone is a bit crestfallen, yes — even tragic to some of you. No one thinks it's "charming" or some other BS, because it's supposed to elicit such an emotion. It's a freaking LIFE-simulator, people. This happens in real-life, so why shouldn't this exact scenario play out in a game that takes place in REAL-TIME?

What even has me more perplexed are complaints about villagers feeling like props while I see New Horizons praised for how this whole "Moving Out" system is handled. The way this system operates in the game only drives home the claim that villagers feel more "lifeless" than they did in previous games, because there's no sense that, "If I neglect them, they'll eventually be gone — maybe forever". You don't appreciate these characters as much as you would in a game where you don't have complete authority over who gets to stay or leave. This is a core part of this series. It's like if Fire Emblem completed abandoned units permanently dying, and it was all just Casual Mode. I don't think your favorite villagers should be "locked in" to not asking to leave for this reason.

When I first played City Folk, one of my first villagers was Gala, and I instantly took a liking to her. So much so that when I spotted her camping out in my New Leaf town, I decided to have her live there, as well. Just last week, she was planning on leaving. After nearly three years, I decided that I didn't want two Normals anymore, and I probably still have her in my older CF town. She's leaving in just a few days, so if I wanted to, there's still time to convince her. When I'm feeling up to playing the worst mainline AC, again, I can at least look forward to seeing her there.

I'll end this with what I posted back in Oct. 2022:

Villagers aren't your virtual pets or property; they're anthropomorphized animals that have the same sapience as people in the real world do, so they shouldn't need your damn permission to move on with their lives in the first place. It's sad and it hurts, and that's the point. It's what grounds this series, not because anyone finds the prospect of a goodbye letter "charming".

'Nuff said.

 

[Aerith]

I never knew that trick in WW, that's neat! To be honest, even though I have favorites, I never felt deep sadness for animals leaving until NL. I had never timetraveled until then, so it wasn't often that I ran into the problem of a villager I liked leaving.

I wouldn't mind a lock-in feature if if was framed correctly. Going up to Isabelle and demanding, "Hey, Cranston, Sprinkle, and Twiggy are prohibited from leaving the town, FOREVER!" can't be anything but creepy. XD But if it was something you could earn with a villager, like say, at a high enough friendship, they ask for your help in filing a 'permanent resident' license/certificate, I think that would be a good enough in-game explanation. Changing your mind and removing the lock-in could be communicated as the license expiring or it being lost (whether by Isabelle or the villager, lol).

I understand the argument of not wanting to be able to control the villagers like a dictator, but it's a game with talking animals, you've already thrown realism out the window. :U

To me it makes more sense for villagers with high friendships to not *ever* want to leave. It's an idyllic life and they have their best friend by their side, why would the traveling bug scratch them so hard they want to uproot everything they've built for the strange unknown? It's especially unfitting for lazy and normal personalities, who I feel wouldn't want to put in the effort (lazy) and would feel more comfortable staying in one place (normal).

I do think people moving out of your life unexpectedly and the sorrow that comes with it is a core part of the series - it's even a plot point in the AC movie. But if you desire that realism, then you should have all of it, not just half. If you have a strong bond with someone who moves away, they don't just stay gone forever - you keep in contact. That's something they've never really implemented, unless you count them showing up on Main Street in NL.

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

I understand the argument of not wanting to be able to control the villagers like a dictator, but it's a game with talking animals — you've already thrown realism out the window. :U

It's also a game that operates in real-time. One thing being "unrealistic" doesn't mean realism shouldn't be considered in a game trying to emulate certain aspects of reality.

To me, it makes more sense for villagers with high friendships to not *ever* want to leave. It's an idyllic life and they have their best friend by their side. Why would the traveling bug scratch them so hard they want to uproot everything they've built for the strange unknown?

I mentioned in my post above that villagers just randomly deciding to tell you they're leaving shouldn't have been as common as it was, so I'll concur (somewhat) with the first sentence. It wouldn't make much sense to just leave everything behind — all the friendships, contributions, and celebrations you've had with these groups of people. Especially if the reason for leaving isn't even justified, like "turf wars" or some other nonsense (I don't think the "turf wars" bit Sisterly Villagers would spout is in any reference to Splatoon; that was announced well over a year after NL came to the West). To be fair, though, there could be a valid reason for them leaving, such as seeing their family again, to pursue a career, etc.

I do think people moving out of your life unexpectedly and the sorrow that comes with it is a core part of the series - it's even a plot point in the AC movie. But if you desire that realism, then you should have all of it, not just half.

Have to criticize this point, again. Why does this need to be the case? This seems like a false dichotomy. What makes fiction interesting to engage in is how it mixes reality with speculative imagination. Why can't there be a balance? Why can't it lean one way or the other? Why can't it be just "half"?

If you have a strong bond with someone who moves away, they don't just stay gone forever - you keep in contact. That's something they've never really implemented, unless you count them showing up on Main Street in NL.

This is something I fully agree with. Everyone has a smartphone, so why doesn't anyone but Tom Nook (seemingly) use it for communication? It's just ridiculous there isn't even an option to text villagers that are still on your own island. The older games could've had something analogous to what you're proposing with letters — remaining in correspondence. This could probably be excused in terms of limitations, but how far can we ascend this excuse?

 

[kisaker39]

There is also a method to stop villagers from randomly leaving your town in New Leaf if you plan on taking a break.

There are 3 (technically 2) stages to a villager moving out in new leaf.

1- thinking of moving out. the villager will think of moving out, and will ping you to inform you of this (unless you are not on speaking terms with this villager, for whatever reason). this stage will last 7-10 days. if this villager has not spoken to you about it within 7-10 days of this stage starting, they will simply move out.

2- moving out. this is when the villager is in boxes if you have not directly told them to stay. they will move out the following day.

3. moved away. this is just to mention the villager having left your town.

A villager will never move out unless they have gone through the first 2 stages. it is impossible. knowing this, you can easily prevent villagers from moving while you are taking a break from the game by confirming none of them are in the first stage. it can be hard if the villager doesn't ping you, but you can ask around and some villagers may mention another wanting to move out. there is also a way to confirm that no villagers are in stage one. if a villager mentions something about a rumor (that does not refer to any rumors about the player) it means no one is thinking of moving. for example, a villager of a jock personality type would ask the player to spread a rumor that they have a world record and so on. it is oddly specific, but it is the only way to tell. most players assume just walking by their villagers to see if they will ping them is enough to confirm they are not thinking of moving, but it is not.

if you have confirmed that no villager is in stage one, you can take a break for as long as you would like without worry.

 

[lasagne_of_death]

This is for Animal Crossing: New Leaf

A way to stop villagers moving out, or rather, get them to notify them of them leaving where you can then refuse their leaving, is to start another save file. When you start a 2nd or 3rd file (i don't know if it works with the 4th player) no one previously in the town will have moved out. Talk to the villagers on this save file, save and exit. Go back to your mayor save file and no villager will have moved out. They'll then ping you sometime soon if they're going to leave, and you can insist they stay.

This worked for me to keep Rocket, who was in a perpetual sleep since I'd heard in a rumour that she'd be leaving. It worked, and she woke up and came to notify me that she was thinking of leaving. Of course, Resetti stopped me from talking to her when she came over, so I simply made another save file. It worked, and I was able to keep Rocket in my town.

 

[DarthGohan1]

Animal Crossing: Wild World

HOWEVER, there is this one trick that I had the luck of stumbling upon online: What you have to do is, half-complete a delivery task, preferably with an alternate player villager. This will lock in both villagers. For example, I wanted to lock Apollo in my WildWorld town, so I don't ever have to worry about logging on, only to find him in boxes. So, what I did was...I created an alt player character and used it to talk to Apollo until he gave me a delivery task. He had me deliver something to Kody, so I did just that. But I did not go back and talk to Apollo. I just stopped using said character. So far, Apollo and Kody haven't even thought about moving, and this has been since late January to early February. This could be done with your main character too, but I would personally advise against it, so you don't get locked out of doing other favors for the villager, or accidentally let the villager you want to keep know that you delivered the package/letter (since they won't be locked in anymore, and you would have to try and get another delivery favor from them). I am not sure if deleting the alt character will keep the villagers locked in or not, so I would recommend keeping it, even if it takes up a player slot.
This trick is a godsend, so much so, that I am ranking Wild World second best in terms of the moving out system/keeping dream villagers.

Never knew this before, what an interesting trick!!