Animal Crossing: New Horizons' May Day event is officially underway, and it gives players a chance to meet up with Rover. Specifically, fans that complete the May Day maze in ACNH get to have a brief chat with Rover, and they also receive a special reward from him. However, some players may indeed be curious if there is more to Rover's role in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, wondering if it is in fact possible to get the blue cat as a villager.
At the time of writing, there is no indication that it is possible to get Rover as a villager in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Players that converse with him repeatedly after completing the maze will simply be told that he plans to remain on the May Day island for a little longer, and there is no option to to invite him to move in as there is when encountering a potential villager on a Mystery Island tour.
That said, Rover does hint at the idea that he may be appearing again in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This suggestion comes after Rover hands over his special May Day event reward, as he states that he hopes that the fates will reunite him and the player sometime soon. Indeed, this could point to a future where the blue cat appears more frequently in ACNH, but it is still unlikely that it would be as a villager.
This can be said with relative confidence because Rover has been a special character in every Animal Crossing game that he has appeared in, and he has never been available as a villager. It thus stands to reason that this trend will continue in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and that Rover will be akin to the other special characters in ACNH if he does in fact have a role beyond the ongoing May Day event.
While this may be slightly disappointing to those players that fall in love with Rover on the May Day island, it is worth mentioning that it is possible to get a poster of the blue cat in-game by scanning his Amiibo card. Of course, this is a far cry from having Rover as a villager in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but it is at least an option for players that want to see more of the cat when May Day ends.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.