Among the critical early items you can build in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the ladder, which helps you to get up and down cliffs at a time when you may not have the means to build lots of inclines. But even with numerous sets of stairs and ramps around your island, your layout might still call for you to whip out a ladder every now and then. As part of the new 2.0 update, you can now erect permanent ladders, making it easier to get around quickly, and without requiring you to equip a ladder (or even carry one around with you). Here's how to get your hands on them and how they work.

　　

How to build a permanent ladder

To get started, visit Nook's Cranny and head to the cabinet on the right. Toward the bottom of the Miscellaneous section, alongside the other new and existing recipes, you'll find the ladder set-up kit recipe. It's costlier than most other recipes at 2,000 bells, but that's still a small fee for the convenience here; buy it and use it to learn the new recipe.

　　A ladder placed against a cliffside in New HorizonsWith the recipe now loaded into your NookPhone, simply head to a workbench just as you would craft anything else, and you'll be able to build the wooden ladder set-up kit. Here's what materials you'll need:

　　1 ladder5 woodAnd a ladder, if you don't already have one handy, costs the following:

　　4 wood4 hardwood4 softwoodSo to do the math, you'll need nine wood, four hardwood, and four softwood for each set-up kit you want to build.

　　

How do ladder set-up kits work?

With one of these kits in your inventory, simply approach a cliffside (either from the top or bottom), open your inventory, and use the set-up kit. You'll instantly prop up the ladder against the cliff and be able to ascend or descend without the usual bother of needing to take out a ladder. To use one, you'll need to press the A button--you won't automatically jump on by walking into it.

　　You can remove a ladder and move it elsewhere whenever you wish by walking up to it and hitting the Y button, so don't worry too much about perfecting your placement right away. There will need to be a small amount of space in order to fit a ladder; you can't have flowers directly in front of a cliffside and wedge a ladder in between them, for instance.

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　　These ladders are much more low-profile than the usual inclines and ramps, which is nice for a few reasons. You can facilitate easier movement without dramatically changing the look of an area--at an angle, you can barely see ladders (perhaps to a point where you might not even notice them in some areas). More importantly, you can fit ladders in tight spots where a ramp or stairs wouldn't fit, such as alongside a beach. That provides a great deal of potential flexibility when designing your island.

　　

Is there a limit on how many ladders you can have?

Many of the elements you can build around your island have a limit, but so far, we haven't encountered one on ladders, even after building and placing 10. We'll continue to experiment and report back if and when a limit is discovered.

　　

Can ladder set-up kits be customized?

Yep, you can customize ladder set-up kits to give them a different color scheme. By default, you get the "natural" wood color, but here's the full slate of options:

　　NaturalBlueRedYellowGreenWhiteAs with anything else, you can customize the look at a workbench. It'll cost one customization kit each time you want to change a color.