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Animal Crossing Fans Chose Best and Worst Villagers After 1.8 Million Votes
Animal Crossing fans have cast more than 1.8 million votes in a large-scale community poll to rank the series' hundreds of villagers, producing a definitive "best and worst" tier list. The poll, run by fan site AnimalCrossingWorld, settles a long-running debate among players, who are randomly assigned villagers when founding their in-game towns and often campaign to attract or avoid specific favourites known as "dreamies".
Lolly, a cat with a Normal personality, topped the poll as the single best villager, with cats dominating the S-tier overall, making up seven of the top twenty entries. Notably, Raymond, the heterochromatic, business-suited cat who became so sought-after after his 2020 debut in New Horizons that he was traded for millions of in-game Bells on a black market, only placed 37th, landing in the A-tier rather than the top rank. At the other end, Truffles, Vic, Violet, Vladimir and Wart Jr featured among the lowest-ranked villagers, though organisers noted rankings could still shift as more votes are cast.
In short
- Fans cast 1.8 million votes ranking Animal Crossing's villagers into tiers.
- Lolly the cat topped the poll; cats dominate the S-tier.
- Once-coveted Raymond ranked only 37th, in A-tier.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
A poll of 1.8 million votes from the actual player community provides robust empirical evidence of genuine collective preference. Whilst individual taste naturally varies, such a massive democratic consensus meaningfully reflects what the community most values in villagers.
The case against
Villager preference is fundamentally subjective, and popularity contests cannot establish objective quality. Results are shaped by exposure, marketing saturation, and regional differences, as evidenced by Raymond's lower ranking despite his previous desirability, making such polls measures of temporary popularity rather than definitive assessments.
Explained simply
Animal Crossing is a Nintendo game series in which players build a community alongside animal characters called villagers. In New Horizons, the latest main game, players begin with a small group of villagers, and new arrivals can join over time.
Villagers have distinct appearances and personalities, and players often develop favourites they hope to have in their town. Some fans call these hoped-for characters “dreamies”; villagers may also be traded between players using Bells, the game’s currency.
The series has hundreds of villagers, so fan rankings offer one way to see which characters are especially popular with players. They reflect the views of people who took part in a poll, rather than an official ranking by Nintendo.