Animal Crossing: New Horizons — How to complete Project K, bring K.K. Slider to your island, and unlock terraforming

KK Slider from Animal Crossing: New Horizons
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The final major task Tom Nook asks you to complete in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is Project K. Basically, you'll be asked to pretty up the island to accommodate a K.K. Slider concert. This is a significant effort requiring that you spend a lot of resources without much guidance. But if you can pull it off, you'll get a huge reward in the form of terraforming, which lets you shape the space to your heart's content.

1. Upgrade Resident Services to a building and talk to Tom Nook

Animal Crossing New Horizons Resident Services

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To get this far in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you must have upgraded Resident Services from a tent to a building. If you haven't done that yet, get to it! These things must be completed to upgrade Resident Services:

  • Upgrade your tent to a house
  • Invite three new villagers
  • Build Nook's Cranny
  • Build a bridge
  • Invite three more villagers

Animal Crossing New Horizons Resident Services

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Once you've done all that, you'll find Tom in the newly erected Resident Services building. When you talk to him, he'll give you a rundown of everything that you can do in the new building, and then he'll mention that he wants to work towards Project K. Basically, the goal of this project is to get K.K. Slider to put on a concert at your island. To do that, you're going to have to make your island a more exciting place.

Animal Crossing New Horizons How To Use Amiibo

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Tom Nook will tell you that he's interested in bringing more people to the island. He'll ask you to pick the perfect location for a campsite. Run around your island and select a place for the campsite to be built. It will show up the following day. The campsite won't be usable the first day it's open, so you'll have to wait for someone to show up the next day.

2. Invite new villagers to live on your island and build more houses

Animal Crossing New Horizons How To Use Amiibo

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You need more people to live on your island if you're going to coax K.K. to perform a concert there. There are two different ways to attract new residents:

The Campsite

The first camper that shows up at your campsite is chosen at random. Still, eventually, you'll be able to invite specific villagers to your island using amiibo cards. However, you can't do it until you unlock the ability to use amiibo. While a camper is visiting, you can ask them to become a permanent resident of your island. Some of them play hard to get, so you might have to invite them multiple times before they agree to move in.

Island trips with Nook Miles Tickets

You can also invite villagers to your island using Nook Miles Tickets. Purchase a ticket from the NookStop at Resident Services for 2,000 Nook Miles and then take a plane to another island. While on your trip, you might just come across a villager you've never seen before. Talk to them and invite them to live on your island.

Build new houses

Animal Crossing New Horizons How To Use Amiibo

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To accommodate all of these villagers, you're going to need to build some more houses. Talk to Tom Nook at Resident Services. He's eager to sell more land for housing. You'll have to pay him 10,000 Bells for each house kit you take from him. For your efforts, you'll be compensated Nook Miles once someone moves in. You can have a total of 10 villagers on your island, so continue to save up and place new housing plots until you reach the limit.

3. Improve your island to get feedback from K.S.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Project K

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The most laborious and most time-consuming part about Project K is raising the star level of your Island Evaluation. Check-in with Isabelle at Resident Services to see what your island's current star rating is. She'll let you know what area you need to work on to improve your score through her recommendations are a bit vague and often repetitive.

The long and short of it is that you're going to need to build more homes, invite more villagers to move in, and increase the overall look of your island by placing decor and items everywhere to get a better rating. This will likely take hundreds of thousands of Bells and several days to complete.

Some key ways to do this are keeping the place clear of weeds, using a wide variety of outdoor decor, planting plenty of trees and flowers, and fencing off these new gardens. Browse the Nook Stop terminal for relevant recipes and impressive structures. Unlocking the Able Sisters shop will also give you a substantial boost, so try to do that as soon as you can.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Project K

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Continue to check in with Isabelle at Resident Services every day to see what needs to be done around your island. Each time, she'll read some feedback that visitors have written about your island. One day, she'll read a note signed by "K.S." Nook and Isabelle will quickly figure out that this feedback is from none other than K.K. Slider himself.

Nook will then call K.K. from his phone. After a brief conversation, Nook will tell you that the famous musician will appear on your island as soon as tomorrow.

4. Attend a K.K. Slider concert

Animal Crossing New Horizons Project K

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K.K. Slider will appear on your island the day after Nook calls him. When that happens, you and your villagers will all gather around and listen to this pup's awesome tunes while the closing credits scroll by. He'll even give you a new track called Welcome to Horizons. With the dawn of the 2.0 update, some new hidden features were included, such as the ability to clap during his concerts by pressing the A button.

K.K. Slider then becomes a staple island visitor who appears every Saturday in front of Resident Services. He'll spend most of the day playing whatever songs he feels like. However, once 6 p.m. rolls around, you can request a specific song. An awesome perk here is that he'll even give you a copy of the song you've asked for, which you can then take home and put in your stereo. Catching his first show will also reward you with Nook Miles, and you'll earn more by becoming a regular at his performances.

5. Purchase terraforming permits at the Resident Services kiosk

Animal Crossing New Horizons Project K

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After the concert has ended, Tom Nook will talk with you and give you the Island Designer app, which unlocks terraforming capabilities. At first, you'll only be able to make pathways. To unlock specific terraforming permits, you'll need to spend Nook Miles at the Resident Services kiosk. But once you've acquired them, you can get to work moving rivers, adjusting cliffs, setting down pathways, and redesigning your island to make it the perfect getaway truly. Here are all of the permits you can purchase:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Construction permitPrice
Waterscaping permit6,000 Nook Miles
Cliff construction permit6,000 Nook Miles
Arched tile path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Brick path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Dark dirt path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Sand path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Stone path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Terra-cotta tile permit2,000 Nook Miles
Wooden path permit2,000 Nook Miles
Custom design path permit2,000 Nook Miles

Live in Concert

Now you know how to get K.K. Slider to show up regularly on your island. This is a great way to collect all of his tracks and just bring more enjoyment to your game on Saturdays. Good luck with Project K! I hope you can quickly raise the star level of your island and get an amazing island evaluation from your favorite guitar-wielding doggo.

Rebecca Spear
Gaming Editor

Gaming aficionado Rebecca Spear is iMore's dedicated gaming editor with a focus on Nintendo Switch and iOS gaming. You’ll never catch her without her Switch or her iPad Air handy. If you’ve got a question about Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda, or just about any other Nintendo series check out her guides to help you out. Rebecca has written thousands of articles in the last six years including hundreds of extensive gaming guides, previews, and reviews for both Switch and Apple Arcade. She also loves checking out new gaming accessories like iPhone controllers and has her ear to the ground when it comes to covering the next big trend.