As you work your way through Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll be able to upgrade and unlock new buildings. The process and the order in which you should do things isn’t immediately clear, so if you’ve been running around and getting nowhere, we can help. Below, we’ve put together a guide on how to upgrade the Resident Services Center in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
How to upgrade the Resident Services Center in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
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- Pay off your Island Getaway with 5,000 Nook Miles.
- Get a house and pay off your home loan (98,000 Bells).
- Gather 30 of every Wood type and 30 Iron to build the Nook's Cranny Shop.
- Speak to Tom Nook after Nook's Cranny is built to get a Bridge Kit.
- Build a Bridge, speak to Tom Nook again, for three Home Kits.
- Set up all three homes and invite three new Villagers to live there.
- When all three Villagers move in, Tom Nook will upgrade the Resident Services Center.
When you start Animal Crossing: New Horizons, knowing what goals to accomplish first can be overwhelming. Should you focus on getting your house? Building the Shop? Upgrading the Resident Services Center? If you want the trust, the answer is a little bit of everything. You’ll definitely want to upgrade your Resident Services Center, and to do this, you’ll have to complete other objectives on your island first.
First, you’ll need to grind through the game and rack up 5,000 Nook Miles to pay off your initial Island Getaway fee. After that, speak to Tom Nook and get yourself a house. Continue grinding through the game for Bells, and when you have 98,000 in total, visit the NookStop and select ABD to pay off your home loan.
Another thing you should be doing in the background as you earn Nook Miles and Bells is hunting down crafting materials to build the Nook’s Cranny Shop. You need 30 Wood, 30 Softwood, 30 Hardwood, and 30 Iron Nuggets. Wood is easy enough to acquire as you use your axe to knock wood loose from trees.
Iron is a bit harder, though we have a handy guide that’ll teach you a useful trick for farming the most Iron possible from Rocks. With the necessary materials gathered, hand them to Timmy and choose a spot for Nook’s Cranny. After construction on Nook’s Cranny has finished and you can visit the Shop, speak to Tom Nook and receive a Bridge Kit to build your first bridge.
Set this up wherever you like, then speak to Tom Nook again for your next assignment. The next assignment is building three new homes for future Villagers to occupy. You’ll need to have these homes set up and ready to go before Villagers will move in. We have a guide explaining exactly what you need to do to add new Villagers to your island that you can read to ensure you’ve done everything properly.
It’ll take some time, but once three additional Villagers move in, Tom Nook will proceed to upgrade the Resident Services Center in order to cater to the new number of Villagers present. Like all buildings in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll need to wait until construction has finished to utilize it so keep this in mind. After that, wait and your new, upgraded Resident Services Center will be built.
With this step done, you’ll have even more objectives and opportunities to work through in Animal Crossing: New Horizons!
Now that you know how to upgrade the Resident Services Center in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, be sure to check out a few of our other guides including how to scan in QR code designs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, how to make fish bait in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and how to get emotes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
