No transfers or cloud saves for Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Nintendo Switch is taking the portable games industry by storm. Pokémon, a classic portable IP, is reaching big numbers and the same is expected from Animal Crossing when it lands on March 20. But there are a couple of constraints that one should know about before sealing a new binding contract with Tom Nook.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons won't let you save your games online, like many other Switch games. That means that all your played hours could be erased if the memory fails, even if you pay Nintendo Switch Online to get access to cloud backups. Further, and this is pretty unique, you will not be able to transfer your save data to another console in the future. If your console dies or you want to change your regular Switch for a Lite, you will also lose your character.

This is explicitly said in the back of the download card shared on ReseteEra. The prepaid game card also states that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will require 6,2 GB of memory space and will support amiibo connectivity. Lastly, pictures and text show multiplayer modes, revealed by Nintendo last week, which supports up to 8-player local and online play.

Why is save transfer's forbidden? There is no official explanation, but one theory points out how profiles work. Every user playing the new Animal Crossing on the same Nintendo Switch hardware will inhabit the same island; there is not a different island for every player. But Nintendo Switch transfer system works on a profile basis, not on a console basis.

Players are not happy with that restricted design because they are afraid of losing long hours of play for one reason or another. Will Nintendo listen as they did with Super Mario Maker 2?