Animal Crossing: New Horizons is all about killing time on a lovely island with a bunch of cute anthropomorphic animals. When you boot up the game you will be given the option of four different islands to choose from. These are completely random, so there’s a chance you could get one that you don’t even want. In Animal Crossing: New Horizon you cannot directly delete your entire save file, instead, you can delete your Villager from the island. In order to start completely fresh, you’ll need to jump through some additional hoops.
How to Restart Your Character
If you want a new Villager, but are fine with keeping the same island load up the game and hit the Minus button. This will ask you to save and go to the Main Menu. Once at the Main Menu, hit the Minus button to bring up settings. Navigate to Save Data and then select “Delete Resident Registration.” Doing so will remove your character completely, all their items, Bells, Miles, and previous interactions with the islanders. Think of it as erasing the memory of a character from the entirety of the game.
The catch is, if you’re the one who founded the island then you cannot delete your character. This is because your Villager is tied to the island as the representative. Without them the island would cease to function, so you’ll need to wipe the data completely from your Nintendo Switch. The Delete Resident Registration is for those who have multiple people living on the same island, not those playing alone looking for a fresh reset.
How to Restart Your Island/Game
To completely restart your island or game of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, go to the Nintendo Switch Main Menu. Navigate to the System Settings tab at the bottom and then Data Management. Go to Delete Save Data at the very bottom, then select Animal Crossing: New Horizons. After confirming your choice, the data will be removed from your Nintendo Switch and you can start an entirely new game.
We recommend doing this early if you’re not a fan of the island layout you were offered. Remember, this choice is irreversible, so make sure you’re absolutely okay with losing all your progress before deleting the data.