Former Nintendo staffer reveals scrapped name for Animal Crossing

There’s no doubt that Animal Crossing is currently one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises, cementing its place in history with the massive success of New Horizons, which has sold over 45 million copies worldwide. The game has even been praised for being a comforting companion during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

But did you know the franchise almost ended up with a completely different name? In a recent interview with Time Extension, former Nintendo localization manager Leslie Swan shared the challenges of translating the series original title, Dōbutsu no Mori, for Western audiences.

The entire localization process took between six months and a year to complete, Leslie Swan revealed, and one of the names considered for the game was Animal Acres, a nod to the town’s grid layout. The name was eventually rejected by Nintendo, and Animal Crossing was chosen instead.

Swan also shared the reaction of the legendary Satoru Iwata, who was heading Nintendo’s corporate planning division at the time, when he found out about the project. He reportedly laughed when he learned that Swan and her team were working on the English localization.

The game’s producer, Takashi Tezuka, also warned the team that this wouldn’t be an easy task. They would need to not only translate thousands of lines of text but also rename characters, come up with new catchphrases, and figure out how to adapt Japan-specific themes for a Western audience.

“I was in a meeting with Mr. Iwata and some other heads of the development group, and we were just kind of going around saying, ‘Here’s what we’re going to be working on’, and I just said, ‘Well, Mr. Tezuka is asking us to work on Animal Forest’ and he just burst out in laughter,” Swan said. “He just laughed and said: ‘I don’t know how you’re going to do this.’ And it’s true, just everything in that game was so specific to Japan.”

If you want to check out the full interview, you can head over to the Time Extension website to read this and other topics covered.