Nintendo is releasing a real-life critterpedia from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but only in Japan

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo is releasing a real-life Animal Crossing: New Horizons critterpedia that’s meant to educate children about the real-world creatures found in the game. 

As reported by VGC, an Animal Crossing: New Horizons-inspired encyclopedia is due to be released by Nintendo in July of this year. The physical book will be accompanied by a 57-minute long DVD that will feature info on all of the real-life creature counterparts found in the game - that's a total of 235 animals if you weren't sure. 

Nintendo’s aim with the product is to educate children about the world’s ecology. If you’re familiar with the wildlife found in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll already be well aware of the kind of creatures we can expect to see in the book, from sharks, crustaceans, butterflies, and more. 

Unfortunately, there’s currently no word on whether this encyclopedia will be getting translated into any other languages, including English. So for now we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that it eventually makes its way to our shores. 

One Animal Crossing book that did recently release overseas though is the Animal Crossing: New Horizons manga. Titled the Deserted Island Diaries, the first issue of this four-part manga series was released back in December 2021 and follows the story of four human characters, who just like players of the game, make the move to a desert island via the Nook Inc. Getaway Package. 

This also wouldn’t be the first time Animal Crossing: New Horizons helped to teach little ones about the critters that inhabit our planet. In fact, one parent shared a post on Reddit at the start of this year praising the game for teaching their child about museums as they weren’t able to visit one in real life due to the pandemic. 

Still trying to fill up your Critterpedia? Take a look at our Animal Crossing: New Horizons fish and our Animal Crossing: New Horizons bugs guides. 

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.