Did you know that trying to start a new game of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will erase all of your current save files? Please do not let this happen to you. Start a new Switch account before you start a brand new game.
This weekend, I decided to get my fiancée into Breath of the Wild. She doesn’t play a lot of video games, and given that the newest Zelda is one of the greatest games ever made, it felt like a good one to get her into. So I exited to the main menu and selected “New Game”. Then I got a prompt: “Overwrite previous save data?”
I thought about it for a second. Surely it must be talking about auto-saves? There’s no way Zelda would wipe your entire database of save files just so you can start a new game, is there? I was about to press “yes” when I thought I’d check Google just to be safe, and sure enough, the internet answered me: Starting a new game of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will delete all of your saves.
To start a new game without erasing your save files, you need to start a new Switch account, which you can do by going to System Settings on the home page, then scrolling down to Users, and then selecting Add User. Then, load up Breath of the Wild with your new user data and you’ll have a nice clean save file to play with. Why is this the only way to start a new game? Because Nintendo.
Incidentally, Breath of the Wild is a very good video game for people who don’t play a lot of games. On Saturday, my fiancée played for seven hours straight.
Comments
11 responses to “Reminder: Don’t Start A New Game Of Zelda Without Switching Accounts”
I can second that it’s a great game for introducing people to. my partner stole my switch so often in the first few days I ended up caving and buying a second one just for him to play. No regrets at all except for how often I get asked “how do I solve X?” “Where is Y?” lol
I had my suspicions when looking at the Load Game options.
Thankfully not a create your own character game where I make multiple versions till I like it.
(Which is usually never)
wait what? No more iconic 3 save files? D:
Not in the super futuristic age of user profiles.
When we got the Switch, I set up my son’s user account first. He played Zelda for a couple hours, then went to bed, then I decided to have a turn.
It did not occur to me for even one second to log in to his account and start a new save. I made my own account and started my own save.
Now, I can understand why you might think each account would have three save slots, even though the game never says “choose a save slot”, because that’s the way Nintendo has done it in the past.
It just goes to show how hard it is to build a UX that won’t confuse at least somebody.
Reminder: believe the prompt when you read it? 😛
The thing I’m curious about is the size of the save file itself. Not sure about Switch, but with the Wii U it says the game needs some 3GB of storage space, though I dunno if part of that is just like some kind of installation type deal for loading like what Xenoblade did, or if creating a new file with another user needs another 3GB, or what. But too much effort to create a new user and test it out.
Pretty sure you can go into data management and see the save size.
Nah that’d be the smart thing to do 😛
Also I forgot that you could select the thingos in the menu there and get through to a breakdown of what’s what, rather than that just being the one save file like I always thought it was til discovering that only recently.
I should have done this before I let my son start playing a new game on our WiiU. Luckily I had finished everything in it I wanted to do (beating the game/photos, etc). Didn’t realise the WiiU used profiles though, so I just figured it was inevitable that I would lose everything.
Doh!
I had actually wondered if this was the case upon noticing a lack of save slots, but didn’t want to test it. Thanks for proving my worries valid.
Actually I think you wrong I tried it on my sons profile he didn’t get very far all the past saves where still there but his latest new save was at the top when you select continue