Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances guide - How to make your perfect island

Island ordinances won’t be new to those who have played any of the previous games in the series but it’s taken the Animal Crossing: New Horizons update 2.0 to finally add them to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As part of this huge update we can now enact four different Island Ordinances that will change daily life on the island to make it better suit the needs of your real one. Whether you want the shops to open earlier or make all the other villagers finally pull their weight, here’s everything you need to know with this Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances guide. 

Where to go to enact Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances

For all of your Animal Crossing: New Horizon ordinance needs, you’ll need to head to see Isabelle at Residential Services. Settle down on the stool and go to ‘Review island features’ and then ‘Discuss ordinances’ and you’ll be able to see the options from there. 

It’s important to say that, unsurprisingly, ordinances aren’t free. You’ll pay 20,000 bells for what Isabelle calls a collaboration and filing fee that we all know Tom Nook will be pocketing the majority of. Not only that but you can only have one active at any time so you’re going to have to be careful about which one you’ve got running. If you want to cancel one, you’ll also have to wait until the next day for that to take effect. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of what each one does 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances: Beautiful Island Ordinance

The Beautiful Island ordinance is music to our very tired ears. This is finally a way to make your villagers pull their weight and help out with weeding, watering flowers, and clearing trash. This means you finally don’t have to feel like you’re the only one actually doing anything while Raymond and co lounge around reading books or inspecting flowers with magnifying glasses. Ideal if you’ve been working on some hybrid flowers.  

Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances: Early Bird Ordinance

The next two Animal Crossing ordinances are very dependent on your IRL situation. If you do your Animal Crossing dailies before work at 9am then the Early Bird Ordinance will mean your village is much more awake in the morning and your shops will be open significantly earlier than usual. Closing times won't be affected though. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances: Night Owl Ordinance

In turn, the Night Owl Ordinance means that your shops will be open later and your villagers will have a lie in for a more active nightlife on your island. Again, this is ideal if you love nighttime play and have always been frustrated that everything is shut by the time you load up the game. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons ordinances: Bell Boom Ordinance

Now the Bell Boom is a great ordinance if you’re rich on goods. While this does mean the cost of goods will go up if you’re buying, so will the amount that you get from selling. So if you find yourself with all manner of expensive bugs like tarantulas one day, you might want to turn on the Bell Boom Ordinance for the next day to make sure you make as much as possible.  

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