Animal Crossing: New Horizons features a truly astounding number of villagers, some old and some new. However, there is certainly not enough room on a single island for all of Animal Crossing: New Horizons' villagers, and indeed some players may be wondering about exactly how many villagers they can have.
To put things simply, of the 402 villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 10 can live together on one island. Notably, this villager limit of 10 does not include player characters, and fans are advised to plan their island layouts with this in mind. It is especially important to do this in cases where multiple players will be sharing a single island in order to ensure that there is enough space for everyone's homes.
With respect to how a player goes about getting 10 villagers to their island in ACNH, there are three primary approaches. The first is to recruit random villagers from Mystery Island Tours, and that is done simply by talking to them and issuing an invitation. The second is to invite random villagers that visit the Campsite, which fans will gain access to after they have upgraded the Resident Services Tent to a full-blown building. And the third is to use Animal Crossing amiibos to recruit specific villagers.
While players may want to be careful about the animals that they invite to live with them initially, it is worth noting that it possible to kick out villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This is done by speaking with Isabelle at Resident Services, and the feature means that players need not be too concerned about recruiting a disagreeable villager.
To note, fans are not required to reach ACNH's villager limit if they do not wish to. Indeed, some players may not be interested in having so many houses on their islands and may opt for fewer animal companions. That said, fans must recruit some new villagers if they hope to do things like up their island's star rating in Animal Crossing: New Horizons or receive a visit from K.K. Slider, and they should be mindful of that fact when working on infrastructure.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for Nintendo Switch.