Animal Crossing Fan Designs Creepy Cryptid Villagers Including Mothman

An Animal Crossing: New Horizons player shared some wonderfully weird crossover art this week, imagining famous cryptids as Animal Crossing villagers. The unique designs of the anthropomorphic animals in the game has inspired a lot of creative art from Animal Crossing fans, who often create crossovers with other art styles and elements of popular culture for their designs. With over 32 million copies sold, the game’s massive popularity has resulted in it having one of the most active artistic communities in gaming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons includes over 400 different animals across 35 species that can take up residence in a player’s town, all possessing one of several different personality types. Ten villagers total can inhabit an Animal Crossing island, where they can be befriended by the player. While the game does offer a large amount of species, the character list contains very few mythical animals, save for a few exceptions, like unicorn villager Julian and dragon villager Drago. Cryptid creatures – animals of folklore like Bigfoot whose existence has never been substantiated – make no appearances on the Animal Crossing character roster.

Twitter user Killskerry shared cryptid-inspired Animal Crossing art this week, designing five famous cryptids reimagined as villagers. They’ve recreated cryptids from all over the map, from California’s Fresno Nightcrawler to the Chupcacabra of Mexican legend. The most famous on the list is arguably the West Virginian Mothman, whom they’ve cleverly drawn wearing a lightbulb t-shirt. The user has drawn inspiration from some of the aesthetics of existing Animal Crossing villagers while adding their own creative spin on the legendary creatures. The Jersey Devil bears some resemblance to an in-game goat, and Wyoming’s Jackalope looks like it could almost fit in with the rabbits of Animal Crossing. On the other hand, creatures like the Fresno Nightcrawler and Mothman look like no creatures seen before in the game.

It’s incredibly impressive this artist was able to transform feared creatures of folklore into adorable Animal Crossing villagers. Many stories of these cryptids paint them in a creepy, disturbing light – for example, Mothman is purported to be a horrifying 7-foot humanoid moth, and the Jersey Devil is described as a giant goat-like creature with bat wings. And yet, with these depictions the cryptids have become creatures many players would be happy to have on their island – their big eyes and friendly dispositions make it easy to forget their chilling origins.

Incredibly creative art like this may make players wonder about what new types of characters they would like to see in the next Animal Crossing game – while it’s unlikely any cryptids will be added, the inclusion of more mythical creatures in the game could be very exciting for fans. The unique character designs in the series have always been part of the game’s popularity, to the point that some players pay to bring popular characters to their Animal Crossing island. Regardless of what the future holds for the game’s roster, unique fan creations like these cryptids are always inspiring to fans of the series and are part of what makes the Animal Crossing: New Horizons community so special.

Source: Killskerry/Twitter

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