The February 20 Nintendo Direct gave fans their best look yet at the highly-anticipated Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and there is certainly a great deal to be excited about. From crafting to terraforming, Animal Crossing: New Horizons abounds in brand new features for players to enjoy, while also keeping much of what is at the core of the series in tact. This includes a continued focus on an array of adorable animal villagers, and indeed there are going to be a ton of them in New Horizons.
More specifically, it is now known that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will have at least 383 villagers in it. This detail comes from Tom Nook himself, by way of the various Animal Crossing Twitter accounts, and the image that accompanies the tweet gives fans a peek at several old villagers that will be returning for the new game. This includes the likes of Goldie, Hamlet, and Rosie, and many more fan-favorite villagers are sure to be confirmed in the upcoming days.
To note, it is difficult to say definitively that there will be exactly 383 villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons due to the tweet's reference to Nook's Homes. For the uninitiated, Nook's Homes is a shop that appeared in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and the indication that the 383 referenced villagers are "Nook's Homes customers" may imply that they all appeared in that title from 2012. As such, it is possible that 383 is only a count of returning villagers, and brand new villagers may push that number even higher.
That said, even if Animal Crossing: New Horizons has just 383 villagers at release, that would still exceed the number that New Leaf launched with. While the Welcome amiibo update would eventually bump Animal Crossing: New Leaf's villager count up to 399, the game released with 333, and fans can thus rest assured that New Horizons will have a more expansive foundation of villagers at launch.
It is also worth mentioning that even more villagers could be added to the new game after Animal Crossing: New Horizons' release date has come and gone. Indeed, it has already been confirmed that the game will receive free post-launch event updates, and perhaps Nintendo's plan for continued support of Animal Crossing: New Horizons to include the introduction of cute new critters.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases March 20 exclusively on Nintendo Switch.