Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are seeing their dream islands deleted from the Dream Suite due to hacked items (via Polygon).
Hacked items might sound nefarious, but players are often using modding methods to obtain decorative items. Earlier this year, star fragment trees were all the rage, which creates this lovely glowy effect. Trees are then able to bear “fruit” like fossils or heart crystals, but these hacks also allow players to make unbreakable tools, spawn any item, or generate villagers for their island.
me thinking about star fragment trees: girl don't do it
you ain't gonna do it girl
just don't do it
me:
… i did it pic.twitter.com/QBxd4WZ4wt
— sells amiibos! (@katiefromorbit) July 31, 2020
Last week, the Dream Suite rolled out in the Wave 2 update. This lets players visit other islands in a “dream,” and lets them tour and explore without anything being permanently saved. However, gaming YouTuber Verlisify has been reporting any islands that are using hacked items to Nintendo. In fact, there’s a compilation of these reports, and it seems like others are also reporting islands for the same infraction.
Decided to delete the tweet with my dream code because of the amount of people that are reporting hacked stuff. Nothing in my town is even hacked, but it still scares me nonetheless. I'm sorry to those of you who wanted to see my island… #AnimalCrossing #ACNH pic.twitter.com/xFp6RnPSL2
— á™​ ​ꪶ​ꪶ​ꪮ​á™​ (@hedgehog_willow) July 30, 2020
In addition, there is no way to appeal the decision, so players have been sharing their emails from Nintendo in solidarity. “hacking a non-competitive game like Animal Crossing is NOT the same as hacking/cheating on a competitive game where players battle one another in some way,” said Twitter user SteeloKriPlayAC. “Animal Crossing is literally a furniture design game with cute animals. someone having a cupcake tree doesn't impact you at all.”
“You aren’t encouraged by the devs to hack Animal Crossing, and there are no codes that you can simply look up to manipulate the game,” responded Twitter user jollyturnip. “People just find Ways to do it anyway in order to manipulate the game how they want, which is against the TOS. I don’t care either way, but these situations aren’t really comparable.”
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now for Nintendo Switch.
