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How to add Friends and Best Friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons — Send gifts, letters & more

Aakrit Sharma
Animal Crossing New Horizons friends sitting together

Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows you to make friends, visit them, and send them gifts and letters. To use such amazing online features, check out this guide on how to add friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, like its predecessors, is a light-hearted life simulation game in which you progress at your own pace. However, many players believe that showing off their dream island is as fun as building it.

Luckily, ACNH allows you to make in-game friends who can visit your island and vice versa. In addition to that, you can send a wide range of personalized gifts and letters to them. Even though there’s no direct competition, you can always use these online features to share your creative ideas and crafting projects with the people closest to you.

On that note, here’s a guide on how to add friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing characters standing near a beach shore

Requirements to add friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

You must have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to add friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Hence, before following any of the steps in this guide, you must first purchase a subscription that costs $3.99/month.

Steps to add friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Follow these steps to make people your friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

  1. Go to your Nintendo Switch’s Home Screen.
  2. Click on the profile icon located in the top left corner of the screen.
  3. Click on Add Friend. Go to Search with Friend Code and enter the Friend Code of the person you want to add.
  4. Send a request and wait for the other person to accept.

Alternatively, you can add a friend on Animal Crossing: New Horizons through a Dodo code:

  1. Launch Animal Crossing: New Horizons and talk to Orville.
  2. Choose I want visitors and select Online Play as the medium.
  3. Select Invite via Dodo code > The More the Merrier! > Yeah, invite anyone.
  4. Now, go back to your Nintendo Switch Profile.
  5. Head to Add Friends and you’ll find the person in a list of friends you’ve played with recently.
  6. Send the person a friend request and as soon as they accept, you’ll be in-game friends!
Animal Crossing New Horizons friends in a garden

How to visit your friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

After becoming in-game friends, here’s how you can visit other people’s islands and invite them in Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

  1. Go to Dodo Airlines and talk to Orville.
  2. Select I want visitors > Online Play > All my friends.
  3. Tell your friend to visit the Dodo on their island and choose I want to fly! > Online Play. Thereafter, they can select your island and visit.

How to send gifts and letters to your friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

You can send gifts and letters to your friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons only after visiting them. After you’ve fulfilled this requirement, follow these steps:

  1. Launch the game and head to the airport.
  2. Interact with the card stand next to the desk.
  3. For 200 Bells, you’ll be able to choose a card design and write a letter to your friend.

To send a gift to your friend in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Nook Shopping app in your NookPhone or go to Resident Services and select Nook Shopping Utility.
  2. The catalog will appear. Here, select an item and choose to Send as a Gift.
  3. Select the friend and send the gift with the default card message or customize it.

How to add Best Friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

You can add Best Friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons after visiting them once. After fulfilling this requirement, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Best Friends app on your NookPhone.
  2. From the list of friends who’ve visited you and vice versa, choose the person you want to make your Best Friend.
  3. Your friend has to accept the Best Friend request.

Do note that Best Friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons have more interaction options and they can also dig holes in your island for planting flowers. With this in mind, only make people you trust your Best Friends, or someone might ruin your island’s decor.

Three Animal Crossing New Horizons avatars among flowers

Well, this was everything to know about adding friends and Best Friends on Animal Crossing: New Horizons and sending them gifts and letters. For similar guides, check out how to spectate matches in Overwatch 2, how to get Life Orb in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and how to buy the railgun in GTA Online.

Image Credits: Nintendo

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