With the Animal Crossing series being historically infamous for its interesting villager personalities that range from sweet and friendly to cranky and rude, many fans were disappointed by the lack of personality variety in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Although there eight total personality types villagers can have, none of them felt as distinct from one another compared to past entries in the series. One way the successor to Animal Crossing: New Horizons could remedy this issue is by introducing brand-new unique personality types that could add more variety the potential villagers making their homes in the player's town.
While it's common for fans to speculate on new villager species the Animal Crossing series could add, new personality types seem to fly under the radar among community discussions. Given that each new entry has introduced new villagers, it's very likely the next Animal Crossing game will do so as well. Introducing new villagers marks the perfect opportunity to spice up villager personalities by giving these new characters wholly new and unique personality types the series has yet to see and could be a great way to alleviate some of the player frustration with Animal Crossing: New Horizons' one-dimensional characters.
New Villager Personality Types Should Be Included in the Next Animal Crossing Game
As it stands, there are currently eight different villager personality types in the Animal Crossing series: lazy, normal, jock, peppy, cranky, snooty, smug, and big sister. These personality types are split between male and female villagers with lazy, jock, cranky and smug being male personality types and normal, peppy, snooty, and big sister being female personality types. Each personality type tends to be a counterpart for one of the opposite gender, such as jock and peppy both being high energy personalities for their corresponding genders, meaning any new personalities added in a future game will have to come in pairs.
Historically, an Animal Crossing villager's personality type has played a substantial role in developing their character as it governs their favorite activities, daily routine, and how they interact with other villagers. For example, jock villagers tend to prefer talking about sports and fitness, go to bed late and wake up early, and have a hard time getting along with lazy villagers. Meanwhile, villagers of the snooty personality type are usually self-centered, prefer to talk about more refined interests like fashion, go to bed late and wake up late, and get along well with peppy villagers who admire their elegance.
There are already a host of complex interactions villagers can have with one another based on their personality types, but there are some personality traits missing that deserve to be represented in the Animal Crossing series. The games don't really have a shy personality type since the game is largely dependent on social interactions between villagers, but representing this personality trait could add an interesting element to players' towns. Personality types like nerdy and timid for male and female villagers respectively could combine elements of the lazy and cranky types to create villagers who tend to stay inside and are somewhat stand-offish due to being introverted.
There is precedent for new villager personality types to be added to the Animal Crossing series, as the smug and big sister personalities were added in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. While there were no new villager personality types added in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, that doesn't mean the series couldn't revisit this mechanic with its villagers in future titles. With Animal Crossing: New Horizons focusing largely on improving the customization and town-designing potential of the series, the follow-up entry should go back to the series' roots and overhaul villager interactions by adding new personality types along with its new villagers.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available for Nintendo Switch.
