Animal Crossing: New Horizons: how to get iron nuggets and other important materials

Trouble finding iron nuggets and clay? We've got you covered.
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Animal Crossing: New Horizon's crafting system is much more expansive than any other game in the series, and it allows you to make decorations for your home and beautiful island.

Last week we covered how to expand your inventory slots, so this time we'll walk you through how to get key crafting materials like iron nuggets, clay, rocks and sticks.

Once you've come to terms with the crafting, you'll notice that nearly everything at the beginning requires a lot of the same materials.

Your axes, shovels, fishing rods and other tools all require branches, stones or wood. As well, as you'll notice, you use these items to gather materials, which cause the items to then break and then you'll use more materials to craft them again. And so goes the pleasing cycle of gameplay in Animal Crossing.

Wood, sticks and trees

Your island will no-doubt be replete with trees of varying style and colour, and you won't be able to chop them down completely until later.

Once you've crafted your first flimsy axe out of some sticks and a rock, you can use it to hit the trees and make them drop three bits of wood - this can be softwood, hardwood and regular old wood - and each has its own uses in crafting.

You can hit each tree on your island three times to gather wood and then you won't be able to do it again until the next day, so if you're just starting out, use it sparingly.

Run out of sticks? No problem! All you need to do is walk up to any tree and give it a good shake. Persistence is key here, as they might not drop any at first but just give it time.

If however, you decide you don't like where a certain tree just happens to be placed, all you need to do is eat one bit of fruit, equip your shovel and then uproot it from the ground and plant it somewhere else.

Eventually, you'll be able to craft a stronger axe which will chop down trees in three hits, then you can get rid of the leftover stump using your shovel.

Rocks, clay and iron nuggets

Rocks will also be scattered around your island but in noticeably short supply. You'll notice the big greyish stone jutting out, typically with a little rock next to them for you to pick up.

If you want the rock to give you more items, which could be clay, iron nuggets, bells and even tiny insects to capture, then you just need to equip your shovel and hit the rock four to five times.

To get stone, clay and iron nuggets from a rock, hit it repeatedly with a shovel or axe.

It's extremely important to note that you shouldn't eat any fruit before you start smacking the rocks, because doing so will destroy it leaving just one rock item to pick up. It basically means you'll miss out on potentially collecting more valuable items from it such as iron nuggets, clay and more rocks.

On the flip side of that, if you're doing some landscaping and hate where rocks have spawned, go ahead and eat some fruit and destroy the rock in one hit, more will come to your island eventually.

Hopefully, this will help you get more out of your wonderfully calm island living, and the validation of Tom Nook being pleased with your progress will spur you on to even greater things.

We reviewed Animal Crossing: New Horizons and gave it a solid 4/5 stars, saying it is 'a panacea to an otherwise uncertain and worrying reality'. Read our full review here.

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