In the Pokémon Sword And Shield Direct that was streamed at the start of September, fans of the series caught a small “Now Saving…” text message pop up in the top right of the screen when the player entered a store.
Now, the game’s director, Shigeru Ohmori, confirmed that autosaving will be a new feature in Sword and Shield in an interview with Game Informer. But there will be an option to disable it.
“It’s a new feature we’re implementing: full auto-save functionality,” Ohmori said. “Traditionally in Pokémon games, it’s an important thing to write your report to record your save, and that’s always been a staple, like, ‘Remember to save your game.’ We do have an autosave feature this time, where you can just adventure and it’ll constantly save the game.”
This will be the first time a mainline Pokémon game has allowed progress to be saved automatically rather than making the player manually overwrite old data. Newer titles like Dragon Quest XI have received a lot of flak recently for not adding an autosave feature, so it looks like Game Freak is modernizing its flagship title.
For the few players who are purists and want to experience the game as they always have by using the old save method, there will still be an option for that. You’ll be able to toggle autosave on or off to fit how you want to experience the game.
Hard resetting is a tactic used when dealing with static encounters or trying to get the right roll on starter stats, so speedrunners and shiny hunters are still going to be able to stick to their methods.
“I think the Nintendo Switch, compared to previous consoles, it’s actually a bit harder to restart your game,” Ohmori said. “Like, on the NES, you’d have a dedicated button to reset the whole thing, but with the Switch, it’s a little bit more complicated of a process.”
The easiest way to bypass not having a dedicated button to power off the console is just returning to the home screen and then closing the software before jumping back in. This is the same method most players used on 3DS rather than shutting off the system and waiting for it to reboot.
Pokémon Sword and Shield release worldwide on Nov. 15.
