What happens if you don't give Wisp his spirit pieces in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is home to creatures of many different kinds, some of which only show up at specific times of the day. One such resident of the island is Wisp the spirit, who can often be spotted when players roam around their islands in the evening.

Wisp can be seen floating around the island, and he gets very startled when players approach him for the first time. In fact, he gets startled enough to lose five different pieces of his spirit, which the player then has to retrieve for him.

However, players have often wondered what the consequences will be if they choose not to return the spirit fragments to Wisp. Here's what happens if players refuse to give back the pieces to Wisp in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can refuse to return the spirit pieces to Wisp

Contrary to popular belief, players are not bound to return the spirit pieces that they find to Wisp. Finding the spirit pieces can be quite a tedious task in itself since players have to chase the floating pieces with their net to catch them and add them to their inventory.

Normally, once players have caught all five spirit pieces, they can go back to Wisp and initiate a conversation with him. To express his gratitude for the retrieval of the spirit pieces, Wisp will offer players a choice between the kind of reward they would like: something new or something expensive.

Ideally, "something new" is the better choice to go with. The reason here is that players will find that Wisp does not have a great sense of materialistic value.

However, if players want, they can also refuse to return the spirit pieces to Wisp since it is one of the dialog options that players are offered. This generally does not yield any dire consequences because Wisp simply has an empty threat to offer, and after some time, the dialog ends off in a loop, where Wisp keeps asking for his spirit pieces, and the player keeps refusing.

However, Wisp will not follow players around or haunt them in Animal Crossing, so there are no actual consequences to not returning spirits to Wisp.

Players must note, though, that keeping the spirits also does not bring them much of a benefit. They simply vanish from the player's inventory the next day. Therefore, while Animal Crossing players can opt not to return the spirits to Wisp, this choice does not provide any advantages. Instead, if they decide to give back the spirit pieces, they get a reward from Wisp, regardless of how meager it is.