Animal Crossing: New Horizons is Bringing Back a Classic Character in May

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is bringing back one of its oldest characters as part of its upcoming May Day event. Earlier today, Nintendo released a trailer showing off upcoming updates and events for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While most of the focus was on the upcoming expansion to the museum and the arrival of Redd and Leif as regular traders, the update video also revealed that the game would be holding a special May Day event in early May. Players will have a week to head out on special May Day tours to deserted islands that appear to involve hedge mazes of some kind. Nintendo teased that a “special visitor” would also be part of the May Day tours. And while they tried to keep his identity a secret, the trailer showed the back of Rover’s head, seemingly confirming that the classic character would be returning to the Animal Crossing franchise.

Rover’s primary purpose in past Animal Crossing games was to help the player set up the game by asking players about their appearance, as well as the time and date. However, his role was taken over by Timmy and Tommy Nook in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and many players were worried that Rover was out of a job, and thus not appear in the game. Rover was one of several popular characters initially left out of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but it seems that his disappearance (like Redd and Leif) was only temporarily.

The teaser briefly shows Rover standing by a bonfire near the center of the island, similar to characters that players could recruit when visiting other desert islands. We don’t know whether players can actually bring Rover to their island, or if he’ll just be a one-off character for this event. Since Rover is a bit of a….rover, our guess is that he’s simply serving as a host for whatever May Day shenanigans Animal Crossing: New Horizons has planned.

We’ll learn more about Rover’s role in the upcoming May Day event in just a few weeks, as the May Day event starts on May 1st and lasts through May 7th. Players will also be able to take part in a Nature Day event that starts on April 23rd and will introduce the ability to plant shrubs to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.