Despite being less than a week old, players have already found a massive glitch in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This glitch lets players repeatedly duplicate items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which has the potential to wreak havoc on Tom Nook's carefully planned economy.
The glitch was first posted to YouTube by the gaming channel GameXplain. The glitch is very easy to pull off, but it does require two players. It shouldn't be too hard to find someone to play with, as many gamers are using Animal Crossing to stay in contact while self isolating.
To activate the glitch, a player first has to put down an item that other items can be placed on top of, like a table or a box. The player then places the item they want to duplicate on top of the box. One player holds onto and rotates the box, while the other player picks up the item on top of it. The item they've duplicated will both respawn on the box and appear in the players inventory. It's slightly finicky, as the player will occasionally just pick up the item, but in general this can be done as many times as the player wants, spawning infinite items. This glitch is possibly even easier to pull off than time traveling, the other popular Animal Crossing: New Horizons work around.
This glitch is crazy, because not only does it give players items, but those items can be turned into Bells, the in-game currency in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Normally, players need to start saving up right away, in order to pay off their debts to Tom Nook. While there are legit ways to pay off Animal Crossing: New Horizons loans fast, if a player chooses to sell the items that they've glitched into existence, they'll be able to generate incredible amounts of Bells. In the video, almost 120,000 Bells are generated in under three minutes, 30,000 more than the player owes Tom Nook for their first house.
While some gamers will jump at the chance to get infinite Bells, there's also a case for not abusing this glitch. Animal Crossing is meant to be a slow burn of a game. Rather than beating the game as quickly as possible, the enjoyment of the game comes from the hours players put in, and the satisfaction of transforming their island from a series of tents into a thriving community. While other glitches, like the longer island name exploit, may be harmless, this glitch does fundamentally change how the game is played. Maybe instead of rushing through the game, players should instead slow down and smell the roses, which they can buy from Tom Nook's store for a few Bells.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for Nintendo Switch.