Because the personalities of the villagers are such an important part of the Animal Crossing series, the New Horizons sequel could benefit from having more character variety.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons achieved a great deal of success thanks to the game's wide variety of villagers, each of whom had a distinct personality that formed the basis of their interactions with one another. However, taking into consideration the age of the platform, the sequel to Animal Crossing: New Horizons could widen the game's scope even further in order to accommodate the vast number of playable characters and give them a sense of greater variety in the ways in which they interact with the player.

Over 400 different villagers were available in Animal Crossing: New Horizons for players to choose from and potentially invite to live on their islands. These villagers included both returning characters from previous games in the series as well as some fresh faces. Animal Crossing's first installment was released for the GameCube, and by the time New Leaf came out, there were more than enough playable ACNH Items to accommodate fan favorites. Although each villager is distinct in their own right due to the sheer variety in appearance and animal type, some of their characteristics are shared due to the series' personality system; therefore, developing new archetypes is essential to ensuring that these designs will continue to be original in the future.

The successor to Animal Crossing: New Horizons could feature an increased number of playable characters. The eight personality types in Animal Crossing: New Horizons are distinct from one another depending on the gender of the villagers. Female villagers can be normal, sisterly, snooty, or peppy, whereas male ACNH Items can take on personalities such as grumpy, lazy, or smug. Many times, the behavior of villagers on the island can be explained by their personalities, which also have animations associated with the groups they belong to. As a consequence of this, it was not uncommon to see jock villagers lifting weights or peppy ACNH Items singing along to K. K. Slider's music. This is because these actions were used as more overt demonstrations of the villagers' respective natures.

Even though New Horizons made significant efforts to make the villagers feel distinct, including the utilization of specific hobbies, a significant amount of the overlap that was evident through personality types felt a bit too similar. This was most apparent in the dialogue between the characters. When more than 400 villagers were divided into only eight personality types, certain phrases frequently repeated themselves across those archetypes. If a player had duplicate personality types on their island, which was unavoidable if they progressed far enough to reach the maximum of 10 villagers, they would frequently be hearing the same sentiments from different characters. This was an unavoidable consequence of reaching the maximum number of villagers.

The most recent game to include new ACNH Items with distinct personalities was Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which debuted the arrogant and sisterly personality types. Although this helped to accommodate the number of player that could meet, New Leaf's roster was still approximately 80 ACNH Items short of what New Horizons had to offer. The successor to New Horizons will almost certainly continue in the same vein as its predecessor, possibly including as many as 500 villagers and putting the spotlight on both the original cast and any new additions. As a consequence of this, the incorporation of a greater variety of personality types might be more important than ever before in order to maintain this scaling.

Due to the sheer volume of conversation that takes place in Animal Crossing, particularly in New Horizons, the addition of new personalities is not something that can be done easily. Having said that, the introduction of two new types has the potential to make a huge impact on the expansion of the villager population's diversity. If New Horizons's successor introduces a similar 10-villager cap for its environment, then having 10 total personality types would likely appease a significant portion of the criticisms levelled against repetitive dialogue. In addition to this, this would make it possible to reclassify previously in Animal Crossing, which might help to maintain a sense of equilibrium among various animal types that tend to lean more toward a particular personality majority.