Nintendo Confirms Animal Crossing: New Horizons Won't Support Save File Transfer

Over the past few weeks, we've been learning more about the specific online quirks of the upcoming Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Today, Nintendo has confirmed there won't be any save file transfers, as it clarified cloud save capabilities.

A translation circling around yesterday indicated that Animal Crossing would have cloud backups, but only for specific instances, like loss, damage, or theft. An update to Animal Crossing: New Horizons' UK page (also reportedly on the US eShop) confirmed a lot the information, and added another wrinkle:

• "This game does not support the Save Data Cloud functionality of Nintendo Switch Online. However, the ability to recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data from the server in the event of console failure, loss or theft will be available to Nintendo Switch Online members sometime in the future."

• "Animal Crossing: New Horizons does not support the ability to transfer your save file from one Nintendo Switch console to another."

That second bullet point is a little concerning for players who might, for example, be using two Nintendo Switch consoles. This essentially means your save file is locked to whatever Switch it might be on, even if you can transfer the game from one Switch to another.

Alongside limits on islands and users, this puts a bit of a damper on the excitement for a new Animal Crossing. Yes, we're thrilled to be indebted to Tom Nook once again. But considering the the popularity of the Switch Lite, especially as a second console to accompany a primary Switch, this seems like a very odd way of handling saves.