Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Time Warp guide!

The changing of the seasons in New Horizons is beautiful. Art by Rytellia

You know the frustration when you’ve had a super busy month and missed a particular rare fish? Or was your birthday so busy you forgot to pop into the game? Life happens outside of our tiny islands. It’s normal to fall behind on the game or feel like you’ll never catch up!

For the collector or perfectionist though, that’s not good enough. Are you like me and have to get everything? Here’s how to time warp and the pros and cons of doing so!


How do I do a time warp?

Time warping is fairly easy but meticulous. If you’re careful and follow these steps each time, you’ll have no problem with your time warp!

  • Save your game.
  • Exit and completely close the game.
  • Go into your Switch settings.
  • Remove the auto time feature and select the date you’d prefer.
  • Open your game back up.

What all are the good things about time warping?

Time Warping has some major benefits!

  • Faster recipe collection
  • Faster fossil collection
  • Critterpedia completion before the time is up
  • Finding the perfect villagers by freezing on the day the previous villager left
  • Finding the star showers without playing every single night
  • Get orders as soon as you order them
  • Birthday celebrations / Tournaments can be missed and revisited

Okay.. so what about bad things? What should I be expecting?

Also great question.. There are a number of things that can happen if you warp too far in the future or if you spend too much time off of your island.

  • Any amount of time warp time will spoil every turnip you own.
  • Your villagers will begin to feel neglected and may move out if you warp too far.
  • Weeds will begin to sprout everywhere and will end up in hard places to find and you’ll have to completely re-weed your island again.
  • Happy Home Academy scores will plummet as your home begins to house roaches as well as you!
  • You may miss events that you cannot time warp back to.

Time warping can be helpful, but it can also be hurtful if you don’t plan appropriately. Always make sure that if you’re going to time warp that you’re ready to accept the consequences that will happen if something goes a little sideways, because once it happens you cannot undo it!