PSA: Don’t open Animal Crossing: New Horizons Presents from strangers

Ye be warned: an Animal Crossing: New Horizons present glitch has apparently made an appearance, and it’s not the fun kind of glitch that can duplicate items. Instead, this Animal Crossing: New Horizons present glitchwill leave you with a nasty surprise: you’ll permanently lose a slot in your inventory.

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, one of the fun things you can do with your friends is send them stuff in the mail. These items arrive as a “Present”, a wrapped box that must be opened by the player in order to discover the contents. Unfortunately, someone has figured out a way to make glitched presents in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that never actually go away, effectively occupying one of your inventory slots forever.

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We’re not yet entirely certain how the Animal Crossing Present glitch can create bugged items, but we can see it in action thanks to a video from /u/WolfingSMM on the /r/AnimalCrossing subreddit. In it, the Redditor opens up the inventory and attempts to open a Present. Once opened, the present reveals an unopened Delivery. That Delivery box can’t be opened and they can’t be dropped, either — which effectively ruins one of your inventory slots forever.

How do I fix the Animal Crossing present glitch?

While this glitch can be extremely annoying, you can thankfully save yourself if you happen to receive one of these bugged gift bags. Here’s what to do:

1. If you open a glitched Present, do not close your inventory!
2. Press the Home button on the right Joy-Con and close Animal Crossing: New Horizons before the game autosaves.
3. Re-open Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
4. It’s probably a good idea to remove the person who sent you the bugged Present from your friend list.
5. Go to your mail and retrieve the glitched Present. Do not open it!
6. Travel to a Mystery Tour Island with a Nook Miles Ticket.
7. Drop the glitched Present on an island and go home. Again, do not open it!

Proof of the glitch can be viewed below:

Any items that are left on Mystery Tour Islands are gone forever once you leave, so this appears to be a safe way to get them out of your game. Unfortunately, if you do open the glitched Present and the game autosaves, you’ll probably be stuck with one less inventory slot until Nintendo figures out a fix for the problem.