Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Everything we know about the different mystery islands

Visiting other islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is always a fun experience. Players get ideas for decorating their islands and free rewards too. However, finding islands to visit regularly is a painful task.

Fortunately, Animal Crossing: New Horizons offers players the option to visit different mystery islands. These islands are the perfect way to gather more resources when players run out of them on their islands. Players can also catch rare bugs and fish on different mystery islands. Finally, non-native fruit trees and hybrid flowers also spawn on mystery islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

To visit these different mystery islands, players need to purchase a 'Nook Miles Ticket'. They can get one from Nook Stop in Resident Services for 2,000 Nook Miles. Once they have a ticket, they can head over to their airport in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and talk to Orville. Once players choose the 'visit other places' option, Orville will notice the Nook Miles Ticket and ask players whether they want to visit a mystery island.

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Different mystery islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The mystery islands do not have a name. However, there are certain themes that players can use to identify them. There are a few guaranteed things that different mystery islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons have. However, their layout is randomly chosen from a select pool of interior and exterior designs.

Wasp nest falling in Animal Crossing: New Horizons mystery island (Image via Koramora)

Common elements in Animal Crossing mystery islands

Naturally, all mystery islands contain a dock that players can also use to fish. Additionally, they have beaches with four palm trees where players can look for bugs. Mystery islands in Aminal Crossing: New Horizons also have a non-removable campfire and simple DIY workbench. Players can also get wasp nests and random furniture items by shaking pine/hardwood trees if they are present. Finally, there is a 50% chance of a single fossil spawning, as well as a 50% chance of a message in a bottle spawning on the shore. Players can also find Wilbur on the dock, who sells flimsy tools in exchange for Nook Miles.

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All mystery island layouts in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are 18 types of mystery islands, with some being rarer than others. While players cannot visit the same island more than once, they can certainly visit the same island layout multiple times. Unfortunately, some mystery island layouts in Animal Crossing: New Horizons are rare and only appear once a day. Finally, some island layouts show up only after players upgrade their Resident Services tent to a building.

Spiral River Island: This layout is one of the most common ones and is also part of the 4 starter mystery islands, players first arrive on. It has a river that looks like a spiral and goes to the sea.

Fidget Spinner Island: Another starter mystery island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, this one has a pond that resembles the shape of a fidget spinner. The pond is filled with a variety of fish.

Short River Island: The third starter mystery island has a river coming out of the second level in the north. It falls down like a waterfall and turns east, flowing into the sea.

Short River and Pond Island: The last starter island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is similar to the third one with the addition of a small pond in the southwest.

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Common mystery islands in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Apart from the starter mystery islands that have an encounter rate of 9.68%, there are various common layouts that have encounter rates ranging from 5%-10%.

Bamboo Island (10%): One of the most common mystery island layouts in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Bamboo island is a one-layer island filled with bamboo trees and a few palm trees on the beach.

Waterfall Island (10%): Another common but fascinating island, this one has three layers and is filled with cliffs. A river starts from the top-most layer and flows counter-clockwise into the sea, making various waterfalls along the way. This island is extremely useful for catching cliff-top fish and river-mouth spawning fish.

Sister Fruit Island (10%): This Animal Crossing: New Horizons mystery island has 19 fruit trees that are of a different type than the player's native fruit. The fruit here will always be the same ones referred to as "sister fruit". The island also has a short river flowing into the sea through the west coast.

Mountain Island (8%): The mountain island has three tiers, with the first tier containing hardwood or cedar trees and the second tier containing only fruit trees. Additionally, the top tier is filled with flowers and rocks. This island doesn't have any ponds or rivers. However, it is great for catching bugs.

Money Rock mystery island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Image via Koramora)

Curly River Island (8%): This island has a square cliff in the northeast that gives way to a waterfall. This turns into a river flowing in a counter-clockwise loop around the island, exiting into the sea through the east coast. On this island, dragonflies, and insects that are associated with water will spawn. Moreover, big fish and fish with fins also spawn more regularly on this island.

Money Rock Island (5%): This Animal Crossing: New Horizons mystery island is full of money rocks, and players can always look forward to these if they are running short of bells. Players can get a total of 88,500 bells from this island. Players will need to eat fruit and then break a rock to the north, which will open up space for the players to vault to the central island, where all the money rocks are. Players will need the Resident Services upgrade to unlock this layout.

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Rare Animal Crossing: New Horizons mystery islands

Big Fish Island (3%): This island is a breeding ground for fish size 4 and larger, making it the perfect place to catch the rare size 6 fish. The island has a river that forms a circle before flowing out into the sea. It has 4 rocks, palm trees and players native-fruit trees with 6 other deciduous trees.

Arachnid Island (2%): This single-layer mystery island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons only spawns tarantulas and scorpions with an octagonal stream in the center of the island, which is narrow enough to be jumped without a pole. The island only appears between 7pm and 4am.

Arachnid mystery island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Image via Koramora)

Rugged Tree Island (1.5%): Another layout that needs the Resident Services upgrade, this mystery island has no water bodies. It has three layers and is full of cliffs spawning Goliath beetle, Rainbow stag and Atlas moth.

Scorpion Money Rock Island (1%): This island, too, has a simple ground layout without water features. It also has cliffs in the northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest corners. This island has money rocks scattered all over the place.

Trash Island (1%): This Animal Crossing: New Horizons island is a breeding ground for trash, and players can fish for it in the waters. It is very useful for farming Nook Miles and DIY recipes that require trash.

Hardwood Island (1%): The layout of this mystery island is similar to Bamboo Island, except it is filled with hardwood and spawns bugs like Goliath beetle, Rainbow stag and Atlas moth.

Fin Island (0.5%): The rare Animal Crossing: New Horizons island has a rectangular pond surrounded by cliffs, with the tallest one being too tall to climb. Unfortunately, no fish appear in the pond. However, players can catch finned fish like great white sharks, ocean sunfish, hammerhead sharks and suckerfish.

Gold Rock and Scorpion Island (0.3%): The rarest mystery island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons spawns a single gold rock that players can hit to obtain golden nuggets.