Easter Eggs You Missed In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are tons of exciting things to discover in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You can stumble upon rare and exotic types of bugs and fish. You can visit strange mystery islands. You can even own a home under the age of 35. Sure, after having the game for a few weeks, it can feel like you've seen all that New Horizons has to offer, especially if you are willing to do a little time travel and experience what the other in-game seasons have in store for players. But that's not necessarily the case.

With the exception of time-exclusive events like Bunny Day or Nature Day, you may be yearning for more to find and do after you've fully upgraded your house or terraformed every inch of your island. Fortunately, New Horizons has a few other secrets hidden under the surface for players to uncover. From obscure Nintendo references to extraterrestrial nightmares, here are some of the Easter eggs you may have missed in your playthrough of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Life in Animal Crossing: New Horizons moves at a slow, easy-going pace. Though people may get a bit too invested in the stalk market or in finding a particularly rare fish or bug, the island getaway experience is far from the feel of an extreme sport. Even so, the developers made sure to include plenty of references to the frenetically paced Splatoon series within the game.

If you catch a squid in the ocean, you may get one of two messages referencing the Splatoon games. One possible message reads, "I caught a squid! It's off the hook!" This is clearly an allusion to the pop duo Off The Hook in Splatoon 2. Similarly, catching a squid may result in the text box, "I caught a squid! I had an inkling I might!" In the Splatoon universe, Inklings are a human-like race that is capable of turning into squids.

Aside from reeling in squids, there is another Splatoon easter egg hidden in New Horizons. If you bring Blathers a Eusthenopteron fossil, he will make a joke about ink-squirting contests saying, "How do we resolve differences? Perhaps some sort of ink-squirting contest of champions?" The contests Blathers is referencing are likely the Turf Wars and Splatfests in the Splatoon games.

StarTropics is an action-adventure game that was originally released for the NES for North American and European players in 1990. In the game, players take control of Mike Jones, a kid who goes to visit his archeologist uncle's laboratory on the tropical island Coralcola. Though StarTropics isn't one of the more widely discussed titles in the NES library, players can still hear a reference to the game while enjoying their own tropical getaway.

When you find Guillver washed-up on your shores, you'll be prompted to help the seagull find five communicator parts to help him fix his broken phone. Once you check the beach for the missing parts and return them to Guillver, he'll fix his phone and happily contact his crew. He then proclaims, "Really!? Wow! I haven't gotten a reception this sweet and bubbly since I washed up at ol' Coralcola!" There's been no word about villagers being able to visit Coralcola in any future updates, but who knows? There have been stranger crossovers.

If you're looking for a statement piece to liven up your island, why not install a giant kaiju statue? For only 5,000 Nook Miles, you can order a Monster Statue to place anywhere on your island. Based on its appearance, this reptilian giant is very obviously an homage to the infamous Japanese monster Godzilla. 

Though the Giant Monster is pretty overt if you stay up-to-date with Nook Rewards, there is a more subtle nod to the Godzilla films also included in New Horizons. If you take three atlas moths to Flick and have him create a statue of the elusive critter, you may notice that the figure is relatively large in comparison to other insect statues. Because of this, some players are using the atlas moth statue to set-up elaborate scenes featuring a showdown between Godzilla and Mothra, one of the more prominent of the Toho kaiju. Though it may take a little bit of patience to hunt down and capture three atlas moths – and wait for Flick to visit your island – the results are definitely worth it.

One of the most influential creative minds working at Nintendo is Kazumi Totaka. Though he started working on the sound design and music of Nintendo games in 1992, Totaka has since made many memorable and even downright iconic scores. In addition to helping create the soundtracks to games like Yoshi's Story, Luigi's Mansion, the Wii channel music, and much of the Animal Crossing series, Totaka has become famous for a particular contribution to Nintendo's musical history.

Throughout his career, Totaka has managed to slip in a short 19 note song into many of his projects. This small piece of music is known as Totaka's Song, and it has shown up in titles from Mario Paint to Mario Tennis Aces. The song also makes an appearance in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, under the title "K.K. Song." The title is especially fitting since K.K. Slider — the famous musical sensation of the Animal Crossing universe — was named after the longtime Nintendo composer, with his full name being Totakeke Slider.

When hitting rocks to hunt for extra clay and iron ore, you may have come across a bell rock or two. Each day, you're guaranteed at least one bell rock on your island, meaning that when you hit this specific rock, you'll receive bells instead of the usual array of resources. Typically you'll collect coins, but if you're lucky enough to get a few bell bags, you may recognize a familiar sound that plays from the Super Mario Bros. series.

As you hit the money rocks, instead of the sound of your tools bludgeoning a mineral deposit, the game will play the iconic six-note jingle that follows when Mario or one of his friends picks up a 1UP mushroom. Though grabbing the resulting bags full of bells may not give your villager another life, it will provide you with the capital needed to pay off your loans.

In New Horizons, some DIY recipes are more difficult to craft than others, but the rewards are often well worth the price. Perhaps one of the hardest to craft items in the game is the Epic Robot Hero, a giant figure that looks incredibly similar to a Gundam and requires a considerable amount of luck and resources to craft.

You can easily pick up the Epic Robot Hero recipe from the Nook Stop for 5,000 Nook Miles, but crafting the statue is a whole other issue. The recipe requires 30 Rusted Parts, which are one of the hardest items to collect in the game. To have access to the Rusted Parts, you'll have to get lucky and have Gulliver visit your island, which happens entirely at random. When he does visit, help him find the five lost communicator parts, and the next day you will find one Rusted Part in your island's recycling bin. However, a quicker way to acquire Rusted Parts is not to give the communicator parts to Gulliver. The following day, they will turn into Rusted Parts.

However, even after you manage to get the 30 Rusted Parts, the Epic Robot Hero requires the following: Gold Armor, Rocket, 90 iron nuggets, and ten gold nuggets. Both the Gold Armor and the Rocket are tough to obtain, considering they are given randomly by villagers or found in balloons and message bottles. Similarly, finding enough nuggets isn't exactly a walk in the park.

In addition to different items being on offer at Nook's Cranny and the Able Sisters' shop every day, players can also find different K.K. Slider songs available for purchase at Resident Services. In total, there are over 90 total songs that the player can collect in the game. However, not all of these songs are available to purchase. Some have to be acquired through different means. 

There is one crucial step that has to be taken before you can collect K.K. Slider's entire discography in New Horizons: You have to get him to come to your island. Once this is done, He'll give you your first song that can't be purchased, "Welcome Horizons." Next, you'll need to request that he plays you a song when he comes to your island each Saturday. When you do, you have to make an incredibly specific request. These request-only songs are remixes and re-imaginings of songs from other Animal Crossing games. So if you're feeling nostalgic for City Folk, see if K.K. can't do you a favor and play "Animal City" for you.

Considering The Legend of Zelda franchise is one of Nintendo's heavy hitters, it only makes sense that there would be some small reference to the series included in New Horizons. Fans of the Zelda series will be happy to know that you can get your hands on your very own ocarina. However, unless you bought all of the beginner recipes from the Nook siblings, you may likely have accidentally passed over the recipe.

To acquire the DIY recipe for an ocarina, you'll first have to grab the DIY for Beginners recipe book for 480 bells from Nook's Cranny. The ocarina is included in the set, so once you buy the recipe, head over to a crafting station, and get to crafting! Luckily, it only costs five clay to make an ocarina so you can outfit your villager in a custom green tunic and assume your role as The Hero of Time in the Animal Crossing universe. Just don't expect to rewind your game's clock a few days by playing a quick song on the instrument.

Making a return from New Leaf is the haunting alien broadcast, a strange easter egg that you can encounter if you're playing in the early hours of the morning. To catch the broadcast in New Horizons, you'll need to have a television placed somewhere in your home. With your TV ready for contact, all you need to do to set up the encounter is tune in at precisely 3:33 a.m. on a Saturday. If done correctly, you will see an alien creature as well as some other extraterrestrial imagery playing on your villager's television. The short broadcast will only last a minute and will end with static, and likely a lot of questions.

Though an otherworldly presence visited beamed into your island's signals to send you a cryptic message, when the clock strikes 3:34 a.m., everything goes back to normal — or at least as normal as life can be after an encounter with an alien. Unfortunately, you won't get any new items or DIY recipes for watching the broadcast, but you may gain an appreciation for some of life's greater mysteries.