Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to Secure Your Island

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Players with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription can now back up their islands using Nintendo’s cloud service.

To do this, press the minus button on the game’s title screen (where you will see the main logo and your villagers). This brings up Tom Nook, who notes that these settings affect more back-end things. From here there is an option that says “Island Backup”. Make that choice.

Nook warns that this is “only for use if your Nintendo Switch system is lost or damaged” and asks if you really want to enable the feature. Once you do this, the game will be backed up to the cloud even when you are not playing. The last time your game was backed up is now displayed on the title screen in the lower left corner.

To download the island backup, you must contact Nintendo directly.