Animal Crossing Monopoly Is Real, And It's Available To Preorder Now

UPDATE: The Animal Crossing edition of Monopoly is now available for purchase at toy retailer Entertainment Earth. This confirms that the edition posted on Reddit is indeed legitimate.

ORIGINAL STORY: Rather convincing images of what appears to be an Animal Crossing-themed version of Monopoly have appeared on Reddit, but nobody's sure if it's actually a real product that you'll be able to buy soon. User u/calysunflower posted pictures of the board, game box, and villager pieces, so if it's a fake, it's a pretty detailed one.

The Monopoly board itself is significantly smaller than traditional Monopoly boards, but that's not uncommon with alternate themed versions of the game. The user who posted the images says that they bought it for $25 at their local Walmart. Googling the model number from the game's bar code reveals placeholder listings at several European toy retailers, which would seem to indicate that it's legitimate, but it's hard to know for sure until it releases officially.

As with most adaptations of Monopoly, the game replaces the Monopoly spaces you expect with Animal Crossing-themed spaces instead. The usual railroad spaces are Dodo Airlines, and the properties themselves are fruit, fossil, fish, or bugs. The iconic Go space, Go to Jail, and Free Parking are all present, however.

Several Reddit users joked about the product's provenance, with one saying, "of course one of the villagers is catching a black bass." (Bass are a very common fish to catch in the game.) Another said that the lack of popular character Raymond indicated that none of the hardcore Animal Crossing fans in the subreddit made it.