Animal Crossing: City Folk Deluxe Is An Unexpected Treat, Gamers Agree

It’s about time for the Animal Crossing franchise to get a new game, but the community believes the perfect version of the game already exists. When Animal Crossing: New Horizons first launched in 2020, it was a huge success thanks to the timing—people needed something to occupy their minds indoors—and the content—it’s a cute game with plenty to do.

It’s just about time for Nintendo to announce a new title, especially with the Nintendo Switch 2 release last year. Instead of a new game, Nintendo added a huge Version 3.0 content update to the last title. The franchise is just about ready to make the leap to the new console, and anticipation of a reveal is building rapidly.

Now that it’s been over six years, the Animal Crossing community on Reddit has nominated the best AC game, and it isn’t New Horizons. Reddit user CallMeTyping has suggested that the best AC game is actually an unofficial modded version of City Folk, called Animal Crossing: City Folk Deluxe.

The unofficial expansion was created by Aurum and released in 2025 on the modder’s website. It acts as the game’s definitive edition, adding a huge amount of content to the base game. City Folk Deluxe adds 244 villagers from other games, makes all items past obtainable, brings all seasonal events to every region, and more.

The mod also makes many more quality-of-life improvements, such as increasing store discounts, balancing prices and item availability, improving the identification process for fossils and artworks, and many others. As a bonus, the mod even has support for online play thanks to external services.

Redditor CallMeTyping has tried all the Animal Crossing games, and claims that City Folk Deluxe finds the best balance. It may be unofficial, but the Redditor states boldly: “I urge everyone to try City Folk Deluxe.”

In the six years since Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released, its flaws have slowly become more apparent. One of the biggest complaints players have is the lack of life in the dialogues with villagers. This isn’t as much of an issue in City Folk, which still retains the snark and personality of villagers, who used to be downright mean to players (in a fun way!).

As fans wait for Nintendo to announce the next Animal Crossing title, it may be worth looking back on the franchise’s previous hits. Though none of the other games in the series are perfect, Aurum’s City Folk Deluxe mod comes close—and it can fill the AC-shaped gap in fans’ hearts until the next game comes along.

Released

September 16, 2002

ESRB

e

Engine

Havok