How to Restart Animal Crossing: New Horizons

With the shortness of the story in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, many players tend to restart their islands to try and get the same feel as the first playthrough.

Restarting your islands on New Horizons is something players can do to go on a new designing path, or unlock things they hadn't unlocked on their old island.

How to Restart Animal Crossing: New Horizons

On the Nintendo Switch, restarting your Animal Crossing is not as easy as it was in previous games.

Presumably, this is to keep players who play the game from accidentally erasing all their progress.

How to Delete Animal Crossing: New Horizons Data

This process requires the player to go the System Settings of the Nintendo Switch System.

1. Go to the Switch Home Menu

Once you're on the Switch Home Menu, you can go to the cog icon next to the sleep button on the Switch's taskbar to access the System Settings.

2. Navigate to Data Management in the System Settings

From there, scroll down to Data Management and open that. Then, you can scroll down within that menu and open Delete Save Data.

3. Locate your ACNH save data and select Delete All Save Data for This Software

You should get a list of all the game data on the Switch, so locate ACNH on the list. Once you have, you can open that and select Delete All Save Data for This Software.

4. Confirm This Choice by Selecting Delete Save Data

After that, a separate menu will show up. To prevent accidental deletion, you must wait a few seconds for the Delete Save Data button to become usable. Once it is, though, you can click it and your save data will be deleted.

How to Restart Your Island on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Once the save data is successfully deleted, the player is then free to relaunch Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

From there, they will be prompted by the Nook Inc. Travel Getaway Package hosts to begin the game again by creating a character.