Animal Crossing: New Horizons May Day guide — How to get through the maze and meet Rover

Spring is in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which means that May is right around the corner. To celebrate this time of the year, players get to experience a May Day event from April 29 - May 7 in New Horizons. There's a unique island to discover and a familiar face to meet. Here's everything you need to know about May Day.

What is May Day?

From April 29 - May 7, players are given a special ticket, which allows them to fly to a unique island. Once they've arrived, players will need to navigate through a maze on that island to find items and eventually meet Rover, a familiar villager from previous Animal Crossing games.

Once players complete the maze and speak with Rover, they won't be able to fly to this special island any more.

What to do for May Day How to get through the maze

1. Head to Resident Services and talk with Tom Nook. He'll tell you about the May Day Tour and explain that a special ticket is waiting for you at the airport.

2. Head to the airport and talk with Orville behind the counter. He will inform you that you aren't allowed to take anything with you when you travel using the Special May Day Ticket. He'll take anything that's currently in your inventory from you, but don't worry, you'll get it back when you fly back to your island. Tell Orville that you want to use the May Day Ticket.

3. The island you fly to is a giant maze with several obstacles in your path. Since you don't have any items when you land, you'll need to locate tools and then strategically use them to get around the labyrinth. There are also plenty of Bell Vouchers for you to acquire.

4. Make your way through the maze picking up the twigs, stones, and apples on your path as often as you can. Upon consuming the apples you'll have the strength to destroy rocks with an axe or remove trees with a shovel, thereby unblocking your path and letting you progress further into the maze. The twigs and stones you collect can be fashioned into tools once you reach a workbench. Only craft necessary tools as resources are in short supply.

5. Look around the maze and determine what tools you need most and then craft them. It might be a Ladder or an Axe.

6. If a tree is blocking your way, consider chopping the tree down and then hopping on the stump to move on instead of using an apple to remove the stump. The more apples you have by the end of the maze, the more likely you are to reach all of the island's Bell Vouchers.

7. But be careful. If you don't use the apples and resources correctly you'll be stuck and will have to leave the maze only to come back and start over. If you can't find your way back to Wilbur, use the Rescue Service app on your Nook Phone to find your way back to safety.

8. Once you make it through the maze, you'll find Rover sitting on the ground next to a fire. Talk to Rover and he'll give you Rover's Briefcase, a decorative item for your island. You can't do anything with it while you're still on this maze island, though.

9. Now run around the island and pick up any Bell Vouchers that you saw before. These can be traded in at Nook's Cranny for 3,000 Bells each. If a shrub is in your way, simply remove it with a shovel. It isn't worth collecting the flowers or shrubs as you won't be able to take them back with you.

10. Once you're satified that you've picked up all of the Bell Vouchers that you can, return to Wilbur and ask him to fly you home with your newly acquired goodies.

11. Once you're back on your island head directly to your mailbox. There you'll find Rover's Briefcase and any Bell Vouchers you acquired on the island maze. Rover's Briefcase is simply a decoration that you can place somewhere on your island. Once you've successfully finished the May Day island maze, you won't be able to access any more May Day Tours.

Who is Rover?

Despite having a name that you'd typically associate with dogs, Rover is a blue and white cat. He has red eyes, wears a red argyle sweater vest, and loves to roam around — thus his name. This cat is very friendly and usually has a smile on his face when you interact with him.

He's appeared in several previous Animal Crossing games and typically holds some kind of special function like driving players to a different area or helping the player start a new game. In the case of New Leaf, answering his questions at the start of the game also helped determine the player's facial features.

Upon completing New Horizons' May Day island maze, players have a chance to talk with Rover and obtain Rover's Briefcase, a decorative item. So far, that's all he's known to do in New Horizons.

It's unclear whether or not we'll be seeing more of him or if he'll have a more permanent role on our islands in the future. It's possible that once the seven-day-long May Day event ends that we'll be seeing more of him, but we don't know for sure. We'll update as we learn more.