One of the earliest reveals about the Nintendo Switch 2 was that all games that were on the Switch, outside of a few that required special peripherals and such, would be able to be played on the Switch 2. Then, as we got more announcements for the Switch 2 via last week’s Direct, it was noted that entire game data could be moved to the Switch 2, which made a lot of people happy. However, even with that, there were some questions about specific games. One of those games was Animal Crossing New Horizons, which had a very specific condition attached to it when the game launched in 2020.
That “condition” had to do with the game’s main premise of being on an island. At the time, Nintendo noted that every Switch the game played on would have a different island. Basically, one island per console, you couldn’t just “reset” the island and start from scratch, or bring your island to another Switch, should something happen, or you wanted to show it off to a friend. Instead, it was attached to you and your profile. But the good news for Animal Crossing New Horizons fans is that Nintendo has confirmed that you’ll be able to transfer your island data to the Nintendo Switch 2!
This comes from Takuhiro Dohta, who noted to Polygon:
“So I should clarify that when you do the system transfer, everything like save data will remain on the Nintendo Switch and once it moves to the Nintendo Switch 2 as well. But the [Animal Crossing] island will be an actual move. So it will leave Nintendo Switch and move over to Nintendo Switch 2.”
So there you go! If you were hoping to “keep your island going” while you were on Switch 2, everything will work out fine via the system transfer feature. So, use it when you get your Switch 2 and keep on crafting your island the way you see fit!
Looking to the future, this franchise will be one that has many people’s attention. After all, the 2020 game was the best-selling game in the franchise and one of the best-selling games of the entire Switch lineup! Now, yes, we do feel we need to say that part of it was because of the global pandemic, but the game was also really good, so that helped.
Nintendo will obviously need to try to top what it did for the Switch game, and one has to wonder how they’ll do that.
