It’s beginning to look as if Animal Crossing: New Horizons players may be able to recover save games more often than they originally thought, as Nintendo has changed the feature’s fine print after an outpouring of disapproval from fans. Scheduled to be released a little less than a month from now, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently one of the Nintendo Switch’s most anticipated games, in part thanks to exciting features like the ability for series fans to import Animal Crossing: New Leaf custom designs into New Horizons.
Not everything which has been revealed about Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been received positively, however. During a recent Nintendo Direct livestream which focused primarily on different aspects of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo revealed (in small text at the bottom of the screen) that players who had their Nintendo Switch consoles destroyed, lost, or stolen would be allowed to recover their save game data on a different console, but only once. This information, coupled with the game’s complete lack of any accessible type of cloud save functionality, made many fans upset.
Now, it looks like Nintendo may be changing their opinion on the way cloud saving works, or at least is entertaining the possibility of allowing fans to access their game save files again in the case of more than one emergency. Just yesterday Nintendo re-uploaded their video from the recent Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct livestream to YouTube, and the wording of the disclaimer underneath Nintendo’s game recovery system has been changed. Check out the new version of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons fine print below, which has been altered from its original version to read “More details on save data recovery functionality will be shared at a future date.”
Originally, the message read “Nintendo Switch Online members can only have save data recovered one time due to loss or damage of system,” which many players found both confusing and irritating. Some Animal Crossing fans wondered why, if such a function already existed, would Nintendo choose to prevent them from accessing it at their leisure. This isn’t the only edit Nintendo has made leading up to the release of New Horizons, as recently the ESRB rating for Animal Crossing: New Horizons (which originally listed in-game purchases) was also changed to remove this reference.
With an official Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed Nintendo Switch on the way and a distinct lack of new Mario or Legend of Zelda game releases on the horizon, Nintendo is strongly betting on the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which could explain why they have been so quick to adjust things which their fans find troublesome. While the new video still says the game doesn’t support cloud saves, hopefully they won’t block any players from being able to recover their games if something detrimental happens to their Nintendo Switch console. As Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ release date of March 20th edges closer, Nintendo has very little, if any, time left to make more changes.
Next: Why Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s Lack Of Cloud Saves Is A Problem
Source: YouTube
