This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

Pretty much the only niggle Animal Crossing fans have had with the upcoming New Horizons is the lack of cloud saves - raising the spectre of a catastrophic loss of progress somewhere down the line. It’s a game that rewards you for putting in hundreds of hours after all.

Now, in a new interview with IGN, the game’s Director, Aya Kyogoku, elaborated on the reason behind the feature being omitted:

“It messes with the economy of Animal Crossing by getting the items or bells as much as they want. Trying to acquire items or money is something we do in real life too, and we also want the users to understand that there is hard work involved with doing these types of things just like real life. By putting in hard work, I think it creates value and love for that specific item you were able to gain. And at the same time, by creating an environment like that, fans who do put in the hard work, we wanted to make sure their hard work does not go in vain and we are able to support those players who put in that time and effort.”

The idea is to prevent cheating then it appears. That said, players would only really be cheating themselves - Animal Crossing is not a competitive game after all - so we’re still not convinced they came down on the right side of this one.

Luckily there are moves afoot to ensure players don’t lose their progress, and are able to transfer their data to a different system. Producer Hisashi Nogami said:

"In terms of data transfer and moving, this has nothing to do with cheating. Switch hardware and Switch’s systems have restrictions when transferring special data like Animal Crossing data because it’s a little bit complex. In order to address those concerns, we are trying to create a transfer system that’s special to Animal Crossing.”

It’s comforting to know there should be a solution for players who lose or replace/upgrade their Switch further down the line. Here’s hoping it won’t be too long before that system is available!

Let us know your thoughts on the reasoning down in the comments.

Source: IGN