Ladders have played a surprisingly pivotal role in all sorts of different video games, from AAA shooters and action-adventure titles to visual novels and cosy life sims.
In our Ladders in Video Games series, we spotlight some of our favourite video game ladders – and today we're searching for ladders in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Animal Crossing is a social simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo and introduced to the European market in 2004. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the fifth main entry in the Animal Crossing series – it was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic ramped up and everyone went into lockdown mode. Perfect timing, really!
In New Horizons, the player controls a character who moves to a deserted island after purchasing a getaway package from Tom Nook (a loveable and prominent character in the series who functions as both a shop owner and real estate broker). The player then completes tasks to develop the island as they wish, with the aim being to eventually develop it into a community of anthropomorphic animals.
But we're not interested in the adorable animals today. We're interested in the adorable ladders.
Why does my character need a ladder?
Unlike the villages seen in previous versions of the game, in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, your island will have at least one other level where you can find more resources and expand your settlement. These higher levels (or 'cliffs' as they are referred to in the game) cannot be accessed without a ladder.
And as luck would have it, one of the tools you can get your in-game hands on is a nifty little extending ladder that allows your character to climb up to higher levels of the island and explore areas of the map that would otherwise be impossible to access.
But how you get the ladder is not explicitly mentioned in the game. This led to many players getting stuck, unable to access any upper levels of their map.
How do I get the ladder?
Before getting the recipe to craft a ladder, players must first meet a few requirements:
- Invite at least one new villager to live on your island.
- Wait for Tom Nook to offer you a bridge construction kit, then gather materials and build the bridge.
- Prepare the houses for your incoming residents by crafting six items of furniture for each household.
Once you have completed these tasks, Tom Nook should send you the ladder recipe electronically. But beware – even if you speed through these tasks on the first day at your island, ladders are not accessible until day 3, so you need to be patient!
You should now be able to pull out your little extending ladder whenever you reach a cliff edge and hop on up!
Ladder upgrades
As of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 update, you now have the option to build permanent ladders for your island, so you don't have to whip out your extending ladder every time you want to go up or down a level. To unlock permanent ladders, you'll need to buy the Ladder Set-Up Kit Recipe from Nook's Cranny. This recipe costs two thousand bells, but once you have it, you can install as many perma-ladders as you like.
Another new feature is the ability to build an incline. Inclines are like fancy staircases that do the same job as ladders by allowing you to easily access different areas of your island. However, building inclines is both costly and time consuming. Inclines can range in price from 98,000 bells for a natural ramp to a whopping 228,000 bells for a red or blue steel staircase.
So the choice is yours. While ladders may not be as aesthetically pleasing as inclines, they are far faster to produce and you can put many more of them across your island within a short amount of time.
Do you need your very own ladder to get to something you can't quite reach? At Ladders UK Direct, we offer a whole range of extension ladders, just like the kind your character uses in the game. So unlike many of the people who have played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you won't be getting stuck trying to get to higher ground!
Browse Extension Ladders
