Animal Crossing: New Horizons – How to Upgrade Tool Durability so they Break Less

Animal Crossing: New Horizons adds a lot of new stuff to the long running franchise. Most of it is good, like the many quality of life enhancements and various new features. Some might frustrate though, like the tool durability that will surely drive you nuts. At the beginning of the game your tools will seem to break all the time, after so few uses that you almost feel like crafting them wasn’t worth it. But there are better tools in the game. Many actually. Let’s go over how to upgrade tool durability so they break less.

How to Upgrade Tool Durability so they Break Less

There are many upgrades for your tools throughout the game, but since you’re looking for help we’re going to assume you’re in the early section of your time with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Starting out all of your tools will be flimsy, making your fishing rod, axe, bug net, and others break after just a few uses. There’s a way to make that stop, or at least make it happen far less. The answer lies with Nook Miles.

Play through most of the opening hours just to make sure you’ve cleared the initial hurdles. Once you unlock the opening tools and can start spending Nook Miles at the kiosk inside of Resident Services you should have access to the upgrade we’re looking for. It’s called the Pretty Good Tools Recipes. This set will give you the first major upgrade for all the tools in the game, but it’s expensive.

3000 Nook Miles is what you need, so check here for tips on how to earn more. Once you have enough just buy the recipe set and start crafting them. These first improvements will upgrade your durability quite a bit. The tools will still break, currently there’s no known way to totally stop that, but they will break less often. Hopefully that answers the common player question of how to upgrade tool durability so they break less.