Hacking

This page contains information that may be recognized as in-game cheats or spoilers.

Hacking, as seen in the Animal Crossing community, is the process of altering a game's files to meet the preferences of the player.

Players may choose to hack their games for the following reasons (many of the reasons below do not apply to New Horizons, where the player has the ability to edit the terrain):

Altering the placement of permanently-placed buildings, such as the Town Hall, Re-Tail, or (prior to New Horizons) villager homes.
Creating custom-made villagers.
Altering the placement of ponds, rivers, or cliffs.
Accessing region-specific or beta content.
Loading trees, bushes, bamboo, or rocks into places they normally cannot be put into (such as the ocean or a river).
Accessing items at a quicker pace than usual by simply loading them into the game, rather than waiting to buy them in-game.
Allowing the player to access areas that are not yet unlocked or that they would not normally have access to, such as train tracks.
Using online functionality on older games.

Notes[]

Nintendo does not encourage players to mod or hack their games. As a result, many of the updates for New Leaf included protections against hacking, and some updates for New Horizons included counters against hacking, such as resetting hacked trees to not spawn items that aren't fruit.
- In New Horizons, if a hacked island visited via dreaming is reported, it can be banned. If one hacks their island and wishes to share it via dreaming, they should exercise caution.
In New Leaf, custom-made villagers cannot be seen if the hacked town is visited via the Dream Suite by a player with a non-hacked game. Because custom villagers are created by replacing a villager that already exists, the villager that was replaced will be there instead of the hacked villager.
- Other effects of hacking, however (mainly that which alters the terrain), can be seen.