How To Get Your Dream Villagers In Animal Crossing New Horizons | ACNH Villager Hunting Tips

As you know, there are hundreds of Villagers in ACNH that can be selected as residents on your island, but due to their differences in personality and appearance and your personal preferences, there are always some that you like most and want to invite to your island. Then how to invite the best villagers or a specific villager to your island? Here we share some useful tips for hunting your dream neighbors in Animal Crossing New Horizons, which are gathered from the community. 

1 - Visit Mystery Islands With Nook Miles Ticket

Villagers don't seem to be equal when it comes to appearance rate. If you've noticed that you're seeing Marina or Zucker more than once: it's not you. Villagers from Mystery Islands Appear Based On Species. Each of the villager species has equal chances of appearing. This means that you are more likely to find Marina the octopus (there are only 3 octopus villagers in the game) than Ankha the cat (there are 23 cat villagers).

2 - Empty Plots Tips For Getting Dream Villager

The game will automatically choose a villager of a personality group that your island lacks. For example, if you have 9 villagers, but lack a Cranky and Smug. Your tent plot will always be filled up by either a Cranky or Smug villager. This also works when you only lack one villager personality. 

We also noticed that empty plots take villager species into consideration. For example, if you have all the villager personalities except smug, but you have a squirrel villager, then the chances of Marshal - the only smug squirrel villager - moving in becomes little to none. The plot will be taken up by a smug villager that doesn't share a similar species to any of your villagers.

For mystery islands the game first rolls for a species, then it randomly picks a character from that species. So in your example, if it rolled Octopus, then yeah there’s only 3 of them. For villagers moving to empty plots, it’s also not always randomly picking what your missing. If you have any visitors, friends or not, to your island and they move a villager out into the void, your island may end up Em with them.

Note: For the entirety of the empty plots rule, this is not a guarantee if you have traveled to another person's island. This means that random move-ins from their void are likely to occur and lower your chances

3 - Tips To Get Your Dream Villager Through Campsite

The game seems to send a villager to your campsite also based on personality that your island lacks. If you had around 5-6 Smug campers in a row but eventually you might stumble upon, like, Marshal. Unlike empty plots, however, the campers don't take villager species into consideration.

For the campsite, it rolls personality first. If you’re missing Smug and Uchi, you have a 60% chance(I think) that a camper will be one of those personalities. Then it will randomly pick a character with that personality. If you time travel you can use that to your advantage if you’re hunting for a particular character, say, Raymond, because it doesn’t repeat the characters until it’s gone through the whole personality list, and it doesn’t seem to include villagers that have lived on your island prior. 

4 - Invite Your Dream Villager With Amiibo Cards

Amiibo cards are the most efficient way to get your dream villagers. If your favorite villager has Amiibo Cards, you can invite him/her to your island by scanning their amiibo on Resident Services. You go to Isabelle and request to invite an amiibo character to your campsite and scan the card, then call them to the Campsite for 3 days until they accept your invitation and give the Animal Crossing items they required before they decide to settle down on your island.

5 - Trade Your Dream Villager With Other Players

Go to the islands of friends or other players to encourage the villagers you like to move. Of course, you need to make sure that the villagers are not welcome on their original islands. If you visit the island of another player who has a villager "in boxes," i.e., preparing to move out, you can talk to them until you've convinced them to come to your island. Note that: The first step to trading villagers on your island is to get an empty spot.