Rebuild the town

Re-create the town (known as rebuild town in and  and build a new town in ) is an option in the  that allows the player to delete their existing town and create a new one. When selecting the option to delete the save data, the character that the player sees when booting up the game will be shocked and will warn them that the process cannot be reversed.

Prior to
In, , , and prior to the  update, selecting "re-create the town" deletes all data in the existing town and the new town is not affected in any way by it.

In
In, once the town's Town Tree has reached its third stage of growth (50 days and 50 hours), selecting "re-create the town" causes Tom Nook to appear. Nook offers to purchase the player's town, giving a price of several million Bells that varies based on the player's progress; the Bells from the player's savings are added to the total, and the player can also choose to sell their catalog. The player then chooses to have all Bells instantly deposited into the ABD in the new town or deposited monthly with interest. In the new town, the player has access to the Bells earned in the sale, their catalog (if it is not also sold), and any public works projects unlocked in the previous town.

In
In, the town cannot be deleted in-game. Tom Nook, who allows non-Resident Representative players to be deleted, will tell the Resident Representative to delete their data via the Nintendo Switch system settings to delete their island. Like in games prior to, the new island is not affected by the previous one; however, the dreams of deleted islands are not deleted and can still be visited.

Other ways
Aside from the obvious manual deletion methods stated above, the games can also be deleted as a result of corruption of saved data, or a glitch that is irreversible by normal means.