In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players will have the opportunity to commemorate the birthdays of villagers. Are there any repercussions if you choose to ignore them?
Every villagers' birthday is commemorated in the Animal Crossing series, and players are invited to join them in their celebration. In New Horizons, the festivities include a party at a villager's home, as well as the opportunity for players to give a gift. Are there any repercussions for missing the celebration, on the other hand? And what happens when villagers' birthdays aren't celebrated?
Timmy and Tommy will inquire about a player's birthday near the beginning of New Horizons. When that day arrives, the villager with the highest friendship rating in the game - or a randomly determined villager if all of the players' friendships are equal - will be waiting for free ACNH theme packs outside the player's house to escort them to a surprise party. Throughout the day, players can collect furniture pieces from the Birthday furniture set.
Villager birthdays, on the other hand, work a little differently than player birthdays. First and foremost, players will be reminded of the date and location of the birthday celebration, and they will be required to travel to the villager's home in order to attend. Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives them the option to present a gift to the villager while they are there. Another option is to send a letter mentioning the villagers' birthday with a gift attached, to which they will respond by thanking the player for remembering their birthday.
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, forgetting a villagers' birthday is a serious offense.
As much as the game encourages you to join in with the villagers' celebrations, it is not strictly necessary to do so. In fact, there are few repercussions for failing to do anything for a villager's birthday, though they will react negatively to poorly chosen gifts, such as trash. It appears that the developers of New Horizons are fully aware that many players are unable to be present in-game on a daily basis, and as a result, villagers will make free ACNH items with no mention of their birthday after it has passed. Players will also not be criticized if they do not show up for a birthday party or do not send gifts to the villagers in any way. Ignoring a villager's birthday also has no effect on their ability to leave free ACNH bells the game any faster, as the process for determining which villager leaves is almost entirely random in Animal Crossing.
Relationships in the Animal Crossing series are fairly straightforward, and there is little that can be done to seriously harm a player's friendships with the villagers on their island in New Horizons. Furthermore, players who make use of the time travel mechanic - which can be accessed by moving the Nintendo Switch's date and time forward or backward - will be able to return to any villager parties they may have missed. Although it is possible that a sequel to Animal Crossing: New Horizons will introduce more notable consequences to the feature (such as negatively impacting a player's friendship with the villager in question), for the time being, players of Animal Crossing: New Horizons can rest assured that the game will not punish them for forgetting someone's birthday.
