The New Duplication Glitch in 'Animal Crossing' Totally Ruins the in-Game Economy

If you want to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons completely by the books, that is certainly your prerogative. There’s nothing wrong with simply living your quaint little island life one day at a time. You don’t have to time travel or pay exorbitant prices (sometimes in real money?!) to get certain villagers on your island or try and hack the stalk market. It’s a lovely and perfect game in its vanilla form.

Buuuuuut if you’re kind of a rebel who’s looking for ways to get rich quick, then you should know that there’s a new Animal Crossing duplication glitch to take advantage of. You know. If you don’t mind being a bit of a scofflaw. If you can handle Mr. Miyamoto being, like, just a little bit disappointed in you, then read on to learn about the glitch.

It appears that the duplication glitch was first discovered by YouTube creator Benjamin Daws of Do Whatever Games. He posted a video of the glitch working on Tuesday, May 12. It’s really quite something to behold. 

Benjamin said he accidentally discovered the glitch while he was playing with multiple characters, which he did in order to make fish and bug models. “I’d go around and get the mail, then switch to another character basically right away,” Benjamin told Polygon. “Then later when I checked that character again, the same present would be re-attached to the letter, even though it was currently in one of the houses or something.” That’s when Benjamin started doing some testing. 

First, you’re going to need to have two Joy-Con controllers and at least three players registered on your island — yourself and two others (Benjamin’s video calls them Mr. A and Mr. B). You also want to have their mailboxes close to your Resident Services plaza. Go to the airport and send 1–3 things that you want to duplicate to one of the extra player characters, then head to the mailboxes and wait for the mail to arrive.

Use your NookPhone’s “Call Resident” app to call Mr. A. Connect your Joy-Con controllers and shake them to make Mr. A the leader. Using Mr. A, go to the mailbox and quickly take the presents from the mail, then open them and drop them on the ground. Shake the other controller to make yourself the leader again, then press + or – and choose “Pick residents again.” Choose Mr. B this time.

Connect your controllers, then immediately press + or – and pick “End Session.” When you go back to the mailboxes, you’ll see the dropped items on the ground, but they’ll also still be in the mailbox. Double the items. Party time.

This glitch allows you to duplicate anything that can be sent in the mail — that includes Nook Miles Tickets, which have quickly become the currency of choice among people who do online Animal Crossing trading. So if you truly need Raymond to live on your island (and you don’t have the patience to just find him yourself on a mystery island), this glitch might be the way to make that happen.

Of course, Nintendo has already patched several duplication glitches, and this one will be patched soon, too. If you’re planning on taking advantage of this glitch, you’d better do it soon.