AI Animal Crossing Hack Turns The Villagers Against Tom Nook

The original Animal Crossing game on GameCube was a pioneer for the relaxing, community-focused games many people enjoy now. While the animal residents usually live peaceful lives, a recent AI modification is changing things. It portrays Tom Nook – the raccoon who manages the town’s economy using bells – as a controlling and oppressive leader who needs to be overthrown.

Software engineer Josh Fonseca hacked the GameCube game Animal Crossing, and he detailed the process in a YouTube video (as reported by Ars Technica). The game wasn’t built to be modified, but Fonseca successfully figured out how to send commands to its code.

Fonseca first attempted to create new character dialogue using one AI, which also referenced character information from online wikis. He found this didn’t work well because it was too much for the AI to manage. Ultimately, he split the process, using one AI to write the dialogue and a separate AI to control how it was presented in the game.

After setting everything up, Fonseca added current events to the game and playfully told the AI to make the villagers dislike Tom Nook. This dislike slowly builds into widespread unhappiness. While the villagers never actually confront Tom, it’s a humorous development for such kind characters.

Leslie Swan, who used to handle localization for Nintendo of America, recently revealed that the game Animal Crossing almost had a different title before the current one was chosen. The latest installment, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, came out in 2020 and received an update for the Switch 2 earlier this year. While we’re not getting a new Animal Crossing game right now, fans can still enjoy themed Crocs that are currently available to purchase.

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2025-09-18 13:09