How to Play Animal Crossing New Horizons on PC?
Customizing islands, collecting rare bugs, and sipping virtual coffee with anthropomorphic pals— Animal Crossing is a vibe. Yet, its official home remains on Nintendo consoles, determined gamers have cracked the code.
Discover how to bring your dream island to life beyond the console. In this article, we will discuss how to play Animal Crossing on PC.
1How to Play Animal Crossing: New Horizons on PC using Emulator
Nintendo has never released an official PC version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, leaving players to rely on third-party Nintendo Switch emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx.
Ryujinx
- Strengths: Higher accuracy, better mod support, and stable performance for Animal Crossing.
- Current Status: No official downloads exist, but community-maintained forks can be found on platforms like Reddit or Discord. Verify files with antivirus tools to avoid malware
Yuzu
- Strengths: Faster performance on lower-end PCs, but mod support (LayeredFS) is notoriously slow and buggy for Animal Crossing.
- Current Status: Development ceased in 2024; only outdated versions circulate, often with broken features
Ryujinx is the better choice for Animal Crossing due to its mod compatibility and stability, and then you can play Animal Crossing on your PC using Nintendo Switch Emulator. Let's have a detailed view of the steps:
Prerequisites
- A legally dumped Animal Crossing: New Horizons ROM (XCI/NSP format)
- A PC meeting minimum specs: Intel i5-4430/Ryzen 3 1200, GT 1030 GPU, 8GB RAM.
- Step 1. Download the Ryujinx Nintendo Emulator and extract it.
- Step 2. Open the extracted folder and click on Ryujinx.exe to run the emulator.
- Step 3. Then add the game to the emulator's library to play it. Open the file menu to select the Ryujinx folder and System Folder. Drag and drop the Prod. Keys files and restart the emulator. Then open tools and install the firmware. Finally, select the Browse option and add the game.
If you meet with performance issues like frame drops and graphical glitches, you can update GPU drivers regularly.
However, these tools exist in a legal gray area. While emulators themselves are not illegal, using them to play games without owning a legitimate copy violates copyright laws. Nintendo has aggressively targeted emulator development, leading to significant setbacks.
- Yuzu: Once the most popular Switch emulator, its team was sued in 2024 for enabling piracy (notably for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom) and ordered to pay $2.4 million in damages. Official downloads and updates are no longer available.
- Ryujinx: Known for its accuracy and mod compatibility, it faced legal pressure in late 2024, resulting in the removal of its GitHub repository and official resources. Community forks now keep it alive, but their legitimacy and safety are uncertain.
2Alternative to Play Animal Crossing on PC
For users, the most direct solution to "play Animal Crossing on PC" is indeed to use the Switch emulator, but there are major legal and technical changes at present (2023~2025).
Nintendo has launched legal actions against major emulators such as Yuzu and Ryujinx, forcing them to stop operating or delete key files many times. The reliability of new versions or community branch updates in the short term is difficult to guarantee.
Hence, we recommend you to play Animal Crossing on PC with AirDroid Cast.
It is an application that allows you to mirror your screen and play your favorite games on your PC. As a result, gaming enthusiasts choose AirDroid Cast above other options.
When the screen is shared, AirDroid Cast gives the most excellent video quality, with no distortion or speed issues. AirDroid Cast allows you to share up to 5 displays at once.
Let's have a look at how to play Animal Crossing New Horizons PC using AirDroid Cast.
- Step 1. Download AirDroid Cast app on your PC.And go to webcast.airdroid.com on your Switch browser.
- Step 2. Keep both devices on the same Wi-Fi, and then enther the 9 digital code shown on your Switch to your PC.
- Step 3. To provide you access to control your Switch screen from PC. Tap on the control icon on the left menu bar of AirDroid Cast desktop, follow the instruction to finish some settings. Then you can start to play Animal Crossing on your PC.
3FAQs about Playing Animal Crossing
4Conclusion
We spoke about the Animal Crossing game and its controls in this article. It is played on the Nintendo Switch, but you can also use the screen mirroring feature to play it on your PC. A third-party program is required to use the screen mirroring capability.
The most crucial goal is to select the most acceptable program to supply you with high-quality outcomes at the lowest possible cost. Instead of downloading multiple applications and then trying them one by one, you can get the top application based on the facts. After reading this article, you will be clear about how to play animal crossing on a PC.
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