How To Expand Your Island on ‘Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream'

If you're like one of the millions of people starting the Nintendo Switch game Tomodachi Life: Living the Dreamthis week, you'll currently be on a very small island to begin with. As the game progresses, your island will too — becoming larger, more beautiful, and eventually a buzzing mini-metropolis for all your Miis.

Once you hit the milestone of creating 10 Miiswith their own housing, you will be metwith a MiiNews bulletin announcing the "Land Reclamation Project" initiative. This is your green light from the game for customizing the shape and size of your new island.

You should earn your first major island expansion once you hit a population of 8 Miis. Once you hit this benchmark, you should receive a MiiNews update announcing an "ocean development in progress." The second should appear once you hit 20 Miis, then again at the 35 Mii mark — exactly half of the 70-Mii limit permitted in the new game.

Once you hit the full expansion point at 35 Miis, don't worry about deleting or editing Miis — this point cannot be turned back. The island on Living the Dream is designed to be a highly customizable canvas, so the gameplay is flexible enough to let your imagination run wild with an island of the size or shape of your choosing, for however many Miis fit your vision.

If you want the full canvas to work with immediately, you can always hit 20, then 35 Miis, then delete them once you're satisfied with your island. The game cannot penalize you for this by taking land away. The Switch game is also pretty generous with space, and can function well at the full 70-Mii capacity without risk of overcrowding.

When you hit the threshold for additional land, it will be empty aside from a few small patches of grass and sand. In a similar manner to Animal Crossing: New Horizons' terraforming, you can slowly work on this through the game's own take, or opt to bulldoze its current look entirely.