Getting to know your villagers is one of the best parts of any Animal Crossing game. Players will often form pretty elaborate relationships to their neighbors, gifting them clothes and trading letters back and forth. So it was understandable that people were worried when a gravestone popped up in the background of the Animal Crossing Direct. Did one of the villagers die? The old turtle mayor Tortimer was getting on in years, had his time finally come?
It was some fun speculation that I had initially dismissed, until I was reminded of one particular villager, the only one I’ve ever truly believed was capable of great violence. Pietro, a Ram that is either wearing a clown getup or just naturally looks terrifying. And like most clowns in popular media these days, I absolutely do not trust him further than I could throw him. Sure, the graveyard is just a decoration that anyone can make, but if there were ever a real specter of death in Animal Crossing, it would be Pietro.
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We spend the bulk of today’s Waypoint Radio talking about Animal Crossing: New Horizons and all of its new mechanics. You can listen to the full episode and read an excerpt below.
Austin: But you’re saying that you have not unlocked the gravestone decoration yet. Or no one’s died.
Gita: Yeah, I mean, one of the two, basically.
Cado: Have you been checking on your neighbors? Do you know?
Gita: I talk to my neighbors every goddamn day, okay?
Austin: Which neighbors did you get? I gotta look up your neighbors. Who’d you get?
Gita: Okay, I’ve got Filbert the squirrel. I’ve got Tabby the cat, best neighbor ever. I’ve got–
Austin: Tabby the cat?
Gita: Yes. Sylvia, the kangaroo.
Austin: Shoutouts to Sylvia.
Gita: I have Pietro who’s a Ram. I’m waiting for you to look up Pietro. And I have Savannah who is a giraffe type but she’s got zebra stripes.
Cado: Wait what?
Austin: Is she new?
Gita: I think she might be new?
Austin: No I see her now. Okay, she’s she’s cool. Pietro, oh boy!
Cado: Whaha! Pietro!
Gita: Patrick, please just look up “Pietro Animal Crossing.”
Austin: I’ve linked it in the [laughter] I’ve linked it in the group chat!
Patrick: Oh, I don’t. No. I just okay–
Cado: That’s beautiful
Patrick: “Pietro is a smug sheep villager” like this description is already dragging, is Pietro smug? Why is Pietro smug? What’s he smug about? What are they smug about?
Austin: Pietro is wearing, do we wanna, can we paint a word picture?
Gita: Okay, so in order to get new villagers you have to have a campsite and they’ll come and camp there. And the first person to show up at my campsite was Pietro. So imagine me all excited because I’m like, “I’m gonna get a new villager” and I go to the campsite and there is a clown faced ram with clown makeup on his face! Clown makeup on his face and like wearing a clown outfit and he’s clown colored. And it was so scary, I was scared of him!
Austin: This is like–
Patrick: “Pietro will get along with lazy, normal, snooty, and peppy villagers and may conflict with cranky villagers.”
Austin: Damn.
Gita: Gotta watch out!
Austin: Pietro is like a ram clown. It looks like it looks like his horns are made of balloon animals? If you told me that this whole thing was just a getup and there was just another villager underneath, I would believe you. If you were like “that’s a mask. This is Pietro’s purge outfit,” I would believe you!
[laughter]
Austin: Also also this is Nintendo throwing dark again, the Animal Crossing wiki notes that “his name is Italian and possibly comes from Pietro Aretino, who is an Italian playwright from the 15th and 16th century. Playwright, author, poet, satirist, and blackmailer who reportedly died from laughing to death!” I think we found out who’s gonna be in that grave under that gravestone. It’s gonna be Pietro. He’s gonna tell joke that he laughs at too much.
Discussed: The Quarantine Zone 00:00, Animal Crossing: New Horizons 16:23, Archero 51:34, Roundguard 56:15, Movies in the time of Covid-19 1:00:17, State of Decay 2 1:11:41, A Monster’s Expedition 1:17:12, The Question Bucket 1:20:04
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