During PAX East it was revealed that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will have a top-down perspective toggle that lets players return to the visual style of the original Animal Crossing. Some people are still living in that world, such as streamer and speedrunner BrianMp16, who is allegedly on track to become the first player to ever legitimately earn a billion bells in the GameCube original after nearly 180 hours.
Brian is a Kansas streamer who primarily plays Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and says he has thus far done "everything else" to push Animal Crossing to its limits. Those accolades include 100% completing the game, modding, hacking, and glitch hunting on top of holding world records like first place in the "Golden Net" category according to speedrun.com.
He created a Reddit account this week to announce Tuesday that he will be officially maxing out his in-game bank account with 999,999,999 bells (Animal Crossing's currency) during a stream on Friday, March 6. To do so without cheating, Brian says he has relied on the "Stalk Market," a recurring system in the series where players buy turnips from a boar named Joan and sell them when the price has skyrocketed. The Animal Crossing: New Horizons direct last month revealed this system will return under a new character, Daisy Mae.
Becoming the world's first legitimate Animal Crossing (GCN) Bellionaire. The grand finale takes place this Friday, March 6th, 2020! from AnimalCrossing
For his troubles Brian will be receiving a model of the game's Post Office that he says nobody has ever gotten legitimately, which is fair given it's an odd reward for the effort compared to newer titles adding in late-game mechanics like terraforming. The nearly 180-hour grind he has gone through focused entirely on the turnip trade and other substantial money-making schemes like catching the highly valued Coelacanth fish in early September, and Brian lays out the rules he followed in the comments of his Reddit post.
The world has been clamoring for Animal Crossing: New Horizons to release on March 20, 2020 alongside id Software's Doom: Eternal. There's no doubt players will be sinking hundreds of hours into the game upon release, even if they don't spend that time quite as focused on the in-game Stalk Market.
More than likely players will be chilled out on their deserted islands, seeing which of the nearly 400 villagers in New Horizons will be joining them. But while they live in those early game tents, perhaps they can feel inspired thinking about Animal Crossing's first legitimate billionaire.
Animal Crossing (2002) is available now on the Nintendo GameCube.
Sources: speedrun.com, BrianMp16 on Twitch