As players discover more DIY recipes, the desire for more construction materials in Animal Crossing: New Horizons becomes more important. It is easy for players to get lost in the overall enjoyment of the game but creating new items to decorate a player's island and home is essential to the game. So constantly harvesting basic items such as iron, stones, clay, and occasionally gold and bells is an islander necessity. Although smashing rocks does provide players with a decent amount of DIY materials, getting the materials can prove to be challenging.
Getting the most out of an island's rocks can be frustrating. Sometimes, players will miss hitting the rock or unexpectedly start speaking with neighbors who were casually walking by. It can be immensely frustrating to get every little stone, iron, or piece of clay from rocks with so many distractions. However, there is an easier way to collect those sweet materials and make the most out of every strike.
Harvesting Rocks for Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Every island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons comes with somewhere between four to six rocks. This gives players to harvest DIY recipe resources every day on their own island. To harvest rocks, players will need to equip either the ax or the shovel to hit the rocks and get them to share their sweet materials. When harvesting rocks, always be sure to bring at least one or two extra shovels or axes. This way, if the tool breaks while working on rocks, it will be easy and quick for players to grab the replacement tool.
Each rock on the island can be hit a total of 8 times each. Rocks allow players to strike them multiple times to receive multiple different resources. There is no real way to know which rock will produce what type of items but the options and possibilities vary from common items such as stones, clay, and iron to more rare items such as gold or bells.
In order to ensure that players get the most out of each rock on the island, players will need to first ensure the area immediately around the rock is clear of flowers, weeds, sticks, or anything else that may be in the way. Rocks will only dispense materials when there is space immediately around the rock. Even a simple item such as a flower can get a rock to stop dispensing materials.
Once the space around the rock is clear, players should approach the rock at an angle then dig two holes behind the player. Every time a player strikes the rocks, the player is moved further from the rock by a little bit. This means that without support behind the player, after two strikes the player will be out of reach of the rock. This quick walk back to the rock will take away time and leave the player with less material than is possible.
Players should stand between the holes and the rock, then start pressing (A). With the two holes behind the player and the rock right in front, there should be no stopping the player from getting all eight items from the island's rocks. If players are searching for more than just eight materials per rock, then remember to go ahead and eat some fruit. This will make the players extra strong and able to smash the rocks with one hit. After emptying the rocks of all 8 materials, smash the rock where it stands to get one (maybe two) more materials. Don't worry about the rock being gone from the island forever. With a new day, new rocks will appear on the island.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available on Nintendo Switch.