Animal Crossing: New Horizons Datamine Reveals NPC Appearance Rate

A recent datamine of Animal Crossing: New Horizons has shed new details about how often and when certain key NPCs appear. Every week, islands on Animal Crossing: New Horizons are visited by an assortment of cute animal creatures hoping to either buy bugs and fish or sell their wares to players. While certain NPCs had a tendency to appear more often than others, we still didn't know exactly how they appeared...until now. Earlier this week, the dataminer Ninji posted new details about how Animal Crossing: New Horizons determines when its beloved vendors appear on the island.

According to Ninji's datamine, Kicks, Saharah and Leif will always appear each week on week days, providing that the players meet certain criteria (such as having Abel's Sisters built). The remaining two weekday NPC slots will be randomly filled by Gulliver, Label, CJ, Flick or Redd. The other NPCs will be given priority for the following week, using a form of bad luck prevention.

Ninji also confirmed Animal Crossing: New Horizons how the other two major NPCs - Celeste and Wisp - appear on the island. Celeste will appear on the island on days when meteor showers are due to appear. If a player is due to have two or more meteor showers in a week, Celeste will randomly appear on one of those nights. Wisp will also appear on the island once per week.

The new information about Animal Crossing: New Horizons confirms a lot of details about the game's NPCs and explains the major discrepancies between certain NPC appearances. It's not a perfect system, but it does show why you need to visit your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island every weekday to make sure you're not missing out on any key NPC appearances.

While waiting for certain Animal Crossing: New Horizons NPCs to appear, players can still look forward to participating in some upcoming events. The International Museum Day event starts on May 18th, and Wedding Season starts on June 1st.