Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to Change Date & Seasons (Time Travel)

Your island getaway in Animal Crossing: New Horizons will experience all of the seasons that our real-life world does. You’ll also go through every day in our calendar year, and be able to take part in various events that take place on particular days. If you’re wanting to skip forward to a particular season, or just take part in a certain event without the wait, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to change date and seasons in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Changing Date & Seasons in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Okay so, typically, the date and seasons will change in New Horizons as they do in the real world. Time passes at the same rate in the game as it does in the real world.

The game also runs off your Nintendo Switch’s clock, so the time of day, date, and subsequently the season in New Horizons will match up perfectly with real life.

As such, technically, there’s no proper way to change the date and seasons in the game. However, if you’re willing to do some fiddling and deal with some in-game penalties for doing so, you can actually change it.

How to Time Travel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

To do so, you’ll first need to complete all of your daily goals and then talk to Tom Nook.

Next, save your game and return to the Home screen of your Nintendo Switch.

Head to the System Settings menu and scroll down to ‘System.’ Here, select the ‘Date and Time’ option and make sure you turn the ‘Synchronize via Internet’ option off. If you leave this on, you won’t be able to change date in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Change your date and time on your Nintendo Switch to whatever day you want to skip forward to. Keep in mind the further you jump ahead, the more severe the penalties you’ll receive. We advise just going a day or two ahead to start with.

Load up Animal Crossing: New Horizons again and you should now be playing ‘in the future’ so to speak.

That’s everything you need to know about how to change date and seasons in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Check out our wiki for more tips and tricks. Alternatively, you can search for Twinfinite, or check out more of our coverage below.