Animal Crossing: New Horizons new villagers are being released early... in Pocket Camp

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise DLC, the first paid DLC drop for the game
(Image credit: Nintendo)

The new villagers heading to Animal Crossing: New Horizons as part of the November 5 update have been introduced early... in mobile spin-off Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

The eight new villagers including already fan favorites Sasha, Ione, and Shino are all being introduced to the Animal Crossing mobile game, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons players still have to wait a week until the Animal Crossing update 2.0 releases. 

In New Horizons, players will need to get their hands on the soon-to-be elusive Animal Crossing series 5 Amiibo cards to invite the new villagers to their island - which will also release on November 5. 

Announced via the Pocket Camp Twitter account, each of the 8 villagers got their own introduction which includes a high-quality image of each new resident, their birthday, and a short bio on each one. 

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The new villagers include:  

  • Ione - a celestial squirrel whose tail resembles a starry night sky 
  • Quinn - the coolest looking eagle to ever grace our islands
  • Cephalobot - an octopus x robotic hybrid (similar to Ribbot)
  • Marlo - a hamster who gives off Marlon Brando in The Godfather vibes
  • Sasha - a super cute but lazy bunny villager 
  • Shino - a stylish deer villager that sports a white and red color scheme
  • Petri - a scientist mouse that wears a lab coat 
  • Tiansheng - a monkey villager based on a Chinese mythical creature       

If you haven’t been keeping up to date with the latest island goings-on - there’s a lot to catch up on. The biggest update Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans have had since the game launched back in March 2020 will also be the "last free major content update" as announced during the latest Animal Crossing direct a few weeks back. 

There’s way too much new stuff to reveal in this story, however, the main talking points of the 2.0 update include: Brewster and his cafe returning to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, farming and cooking making their way into the game, and the first paid-for DLC for New Horizons: Happy Home Paradise - which can be bought individually or as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion

To get even more excited about the upcoming update, find out why two Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC drops are amazing for fans, and interesting for its future.

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.