Your character and the villagers
• Instead of Tortimer being the mayor of the village, your character will instead fill that role.
• All humans are now taller and all villagers now vary in size depending on their species.
• Villagers will once again grant you a framed picture of themselves once you become their best friend. This feature was last seen in Wild World.
• Villagers can now shop at various stores around your town.
• You can now customize your pants, shoes, socks and skirts.
• Characters now have the ability to swim in the ocean provided they put on a bathing suit.
• Deers, hamsters and woolly mammoth join the species list of different animal villagers.
• There are new hairstyles, hair colors, as well as new eye styles. This is the first time new eyes have been added to any Animal Crossing game.
• Two new villager personalties are confirmed - one new one per gender.
• Some animals like Kapp’n and Gulliver have returned to earlier roles.
• The developers considered what animals would have what items in their homes and included items they thought would match.


Your town
• The main port of access to other towns is now a train, not a town gate as seen in City Folk and Wild World. The train station is run by Porter the Monkey and is located at the very top of the town.
• The town center houses the “great” tree. Upon arriving at your village, you will  plant a sapling in the middle of the town center. As your village ages, your tree will grow bigger and bigger, surpassing the size of the “normal” trees that can be found around the rest of your town.
• The town will now have a large beach surrounding a majority of its lower and side half.
• Cliffs as we know them no longer exist. Instead there is a large cliff dividing the beach from the rest of the town.
• Town decorations, or town “furniture” such as lamps, benches and topiaries can now be placed around your village using your mayor status. While in the mayors office, you will have the option to begin a community project in the form of setting up a work site for a specific town decoration. You, or other characters, can pay for the project by speaking to a gyroid who will be positioned at the place you want the town decoration and paying him a set amount of bells. Once the bell amount is reached, the town decoration will be built.
• Villagers not from your town will now temporarily show up in tents during the summer. This is a feature taken from the original Animal Crossing game.
• In addition to trees and flowers, players will now be able to plant bushes using a special seedling. Bushes will grow and create barriers that are useful for decoration or even gardens that you wish to surround with something aesthetic. In the video of the Japanese town, there was also bamboo growing but that could be regional.
• Fruit has evolved tremendously. It is no longer just the old favourites any more. Now, new fruit such as bananas, durians, lemons, mangoes, and persimmons have been seen in the clips for the mini-game on the Island. It's not certain whether all are available to grow in your town. There are also rare versions of each fruit that can be grown. These are thought to be more tasty, and might sell for more bells.
• New flower types, such as lilies, have been added to the game. Flowers now appear in sets of 4 as opposed to sets of 3 and are also seen to have buds. They will also sparkle when they've been watered.
• The town now includes access to an island, similar to the one that existed in the first Animal Crossing game.
• Can make the stores open early, or keep them open late.
• Items in the town are paid with donations. The animals will provide some money, but you as the player will end up paying a lot of their own money.
• If you don’t do your job as a mayor ‘properly’ no one will complain at you in the village.
• There is an initial ‘hurdle’ you must complete as mayor early on, but once cleared you’re free to do what you want.
• The tree planting at the beginning of the game - your first act as mayor - was included after Eguchi played the game and didn’t feel like he really was mayor. This was quite late in development.
• The also added a ceremony after building your first bridge to help with this.
• You can chose not to have the ceremony if you’d like.
• They gave the player the ability to include the Reset Management Center as a part of being mayor.
• To begin on community projects you must first acquire 100 community service points. How to achieve these points will be explained by your lovely secretary.
• When picking where to place the community projects your secretary will be pretty picky about where you plan to place it.


Town Buildings
As mayor, you have the option to build new buildings in the town. Gone are the days where the Museum, Nooks, Able Sisters, and the Town Hall make up your town. Now, you can choose to build certain stores/buildings. Below is a list of all the known buildings that will or can exist in your town.
• R Parkers - Recycle Shop: This is run by two alpacas - Lisa and Kaizo. You can sell items from your inventory to Lisa and she will also deal with putting items up for sale - a replacement for the Auction House in City Folk. Unlike the auction house though, items can be offered and bought as you wish rather than on specific dates. You and other villagers may purchase items on display and if a villager is in the store, you can sometimes influence them into making a purchase. The second part of the store is run by Kaizo, who will customise furniture for you. For example, you can substitute the fabric of a couch by choosing from a selected range offered by Kaizo or from a pattern you created. You can also change the color and style of the furniture.
• The Police Station: Run by Booker, you can come here to check through the lost and found.
• Coffee Shop: Brewster now has his very own Coffee Shop and you no longer have to drink it on the premises. Yes, ''coffee to go'' has found it's way to the game. There is also the option to work for Brewster. Whether or not this involves just delivering or is something more in depth is currently unknown.
• The Mayor's Office: Here is where you will do all of your mayoral duties. Hisho, your assistant, will ask you what you wish to do upon sitting in the mayor's chair. One of the options is to build town decorations. The mayor's office will resemble the town hall from CF and WW at first, but can be changed later on.


The Shop Center
Directly above the train tracks lies the shop center. The Shop center contains many stores, some new and some old. Some of the stores will expand, and some will not open until you have done some sort of community project as mayor. Shops and buildings in this area are:
• Able Sisters: The Able sisters will return to the game in a new shop sell pants and skirts as well as shirts and what looks like dresses. They no longer sell accessories.
• Labelle's: Labelle now runs her own store and takes over the job of selling accessories.
• Post Office: Pelly and Phyllis return to their job as simple post office workers.
• The Museum: The Museum returns, offering its standard exhibits: bugs, fish, fossils and paintings. It now includes a circular tank where a whale shark has been seen. When you complete a certain community project as mayor you will unlock a NEW portion of the museum - a display area on the second floor. On this floor, you can create your OWN exhibits as well as shop for items that Celeste will put up for sale in the main room. Celeste no longer runs the observatory, as constellations are no longer offered in this game to make room for a more realistic looking night sky.
• Shoe Shank: Kicks has moved up in the world, and now owns his very own shop. You can buy shoes and socks from his store.
• Harriets' Salon: This will be located on the second floor of the Able sister's building complex. Apparently there will be new hair styles and colours too.
• Timmy and Tommy's: Nooks is now run by Timmy and Tommy. The shop will offer new furniture, some of which you can hang on your wall. Their shop will expand, just like Nooks shop did in the previous games. Timmy and Tommy will both work at the shop, but not on the same days.
• Real Estate Agency: Nook now operates out of a Real Estate Agency. Lyle joins Nook in the building, presumably working for the HRA as he did in CF. Nook enables you to expand your home as well as customise the exterior. The different exteriors include styles as well as choosing roofing, mailboxes, fences, walls, doors and chimneys. For expanding your home, you may choose what house expansions you want and in which order. Further, when you build an upstairs or downstairs they will NOT automatically be large. They will start off small, and will have to be expanded just as you do with the main room. The rooms available for expansion are: an upstairs, a left room, a right room, a back room and a basement. These are all in addition to the main room and mean that this game offers the largest home ever.
• The Photo Booth: The Photo booth is a booth you can pay to take pictures of your character for your “ID”. This ID is exchanged with other players you streetpass with, and includes your town, character name, your picture, and your “Dream Code”.
• Dream Mansion: The dream mansion is a place you can visit to have fun in a state of lucid dreaming. It allows you to visit other towns in your dream but first, you will need to streetpass people in order to get their “Dream Code”. This code allows you to access their town in a dream and because dreams aren't real, it makes sense that nothing you do in another town will be saved. You can also upload your data to the server and then other people can come visit you easily. This feature doesn’t require friend codes and doesn’t affect the other person’s village. A tapir runs the Dream Emporium because of the Japanese myth of them eating dreams (like the Pokemon Hypno or Munna), but the devs realised only Japan thinks this way.
• Club 444: Club 444 serves two purposes. In the day time, it is where you can visit Doctor Shrunk to obtain new emotions by giving him presents such as an apple. Apparently you can also interact with Dr. Shrunk during his shows as well. Interestingly, you can now carry ALL the emotions at once and are no longer limited to just four. On some evenings, Club 444 transforms into KK Sliders stage. He will perform songs to you, but afterwards will offer to become “DJ KK”. As a DJ he will play upbeat music with remixes of his own work as well as remixes of music from old NES games. Your players will dance if you keep them still while he is DJ'ing. KK Slider will now have unique album covers for his songs. These can be placed as items in the house or hung on walls.
• Garden Shop: The Garden Shop is run by a sloth. He will sell you flowers, watering cans, saplings, and even shrubs that will grow into hedges. His shop will expand, along with Timmy and Tommy's. Reiji the Lazy Sloth owner of the garden shop was decided because sloths live in the forest and they thought a forest animal would suit that shop.


The Streetpass Plaza
• Directly above the shopping area is a brand new part of town that will contain different houses belonging to players that you streetpass with.
• There are three blocks with 16 spaces in them. So you could end up with 48 houses in the Plaza.
• You will also see the characters who own those houses roaming around this area. They will typically be carrying an item such as a pinwheel, a balloon or an ice cream cone. These items can be obtained by speaking with them.


The Island and Wifi Games
• The island is a new area which you can visit by speaking to Kapp'n who you can find in his boat at the dock. The dock can be accessed from your beach.
• If you have friends over for Wifi, all of you can visit the island together in order to play games.
• The island contains coconut trees, bugs, and fish. It is not known whether or not there will be fish or bug exclusive to the island.
• Located on the island is the dock building. This building houses three different kappas, two of which sell tropical items and one who will set up wifi games for you.
• Wifi games are brand new for AC:3DS. In the past, it was up to the players to come up with their own games for their friends to play over wifi. Now, the game has some built right in!
• A retired Tortimer is now found on the island, hosting these mini-games.
• The Maze Game: Players will have to dash through a large hedge maze with hibiscus flowers, in search of specific fruits. The first to collect all their fruits and bring them to Tortimer will win.
• The Hammer Game: Players will rush to hit a moving target with hammer. The moving target is Cornimer's acorn head from Wild World and it sits on a remote control car.
• The Island will have a lot more mini-games to choose from other than the two we know about.
• You can play games by yourself, with others over Wifi and also with friends who are visiting your town.
• You can't spend bells on the island. By playing mini-games, you can earn medals which you can then use to buy items from the gift shop on the island.
• The island will always be set in summer time.
• You get your first bathing suit from the island.
• Once you get your bathing suit, you can go swimming and diving. While swimming, you may encounter dark circles that you may dive for in hopes of finding certain sea creatures or treasure that you can't obtain through regular fishing.
• When going to the island you can have Kapp'n sing a song on the way there or not.
• When playing mini-games on the island or leaving the island, you must put all your items in the box next to the counter inside the hut. Otherwise they'll disappear or you can't play the mini-games.
• You can rent things like swim suits, tools, etc.
•  It is possible to take the fruits that you get on the different islands that the minigames are placed on.
• You achieve most items on the island by buying them with medals you get from the mini-games.


Other
• The chimneys of houses will spew out different shaped smoke. Clouds will also occasionally form shapes, such as stars.
• There is a new item called the Megaphone which you can use to shout out an animals name. The villager will hear their name, and will respond with a speech bubble that will give you a clue as to where they are. This is similar to how text bubbles work over wifi in City Folk.
• Items can now be hung on the wall.
• When making patterns, you are still restricted to 16 colours per palette. However, you may choose which 16 colours you want in your palette. This will enable a much greater variety of patterns. Further, QR codes will enable easy pattern sharing.
• Katrina and Redd return as Special Villagers (as opposed to having a permanent store somewhere). Sahara, and Wendell will also return.
• Real world holidays are back, such as Halloween and Christmas.
• Birthday parties are back. These were last seen in Wild World and seem to be a much bigger occasion with a surprise party for your character too.
• Fortune Cookies are sold at the Nooks store run by Timmy and Tommy. These seem to have replaced Katrina's charms so could bring bad or good luck.
• There appears to be crystals that can be dug up.
• Miniature fossil displays appear in the game.
• After a tournament, there is a ceremony for the participants in Chip's tent and this includes a trophy presentation for the top 3 places.
• About 1.5 the amount of furniture found in City Folk. Not just filler, but items people would want to use in their homes. If you’re not good at design, you can easily just repaint/refurbish things in a solid color.
• For online functions, not only can you do stuff with 3DS friends, there is stuff you can only do with those registered as best friends. Best Friends don’t have to be system friends. For people playing on the same cart who don’t want the system code to be shared with people they don’t know. You can exchange chat messages with Best Friends even if they aren’t in your village, but they are online. Great for turnips and fishing tournaments!
• The developers worked with localization teams to create items. Like a plate of 12 grapes for the Spanish New Year. Thus some items are region specific. If you visit a friend’s village in that region during the right time, you can buy these items.
• New DLC is already being released, the first being special 7-Eleven themed items. Currentyl, in Japan, you can now visit a 7-Eleven store and connect to the Nintendo Network, letting you download 7-Eleven themed furniture onto your game. New furniture to the theme will be available each month.
• You can visit Nintendo's town via the Dream Emporium and apparently they have special items you can obtain there.