Pokemon Sword & Shield players angry over cloud saves after fan is robbed
Game Freak / The Pokemon Company[jwplayer UmrP7a34]The Pokemon community became frustrated after a player lost their 700+ hour Sword & Shield save after allegedly being robbed on the London Underground. The Trainer’s heartbreaking story sparked a debate about the Gen VIII title not having cloud saves.
The Pokemon series made its eighth generation debut with the release of Sword & Shield in 2019. The Nintendo Switch title introduced players to the Galar region, and included new mechanics such as Dynamaxing and Max Raids.
However, one element that the RPG lacks is cloud saving – or online save file backups. Fans became upset about the missing feature on August 22 when a player explained that they lost over 700 hours in the Gen VIII release after being robbed on the train.
Game Freak / The Pokemon CompanyPokemon player’s story sparks outrage over cloud saves
While many fans were initially angry with Sword & Shield scrapping the national Pokedex, the Gen VIII RPG has overall won many over after its release. However on August 22, one of its missing features became a topic for discussion after a player’s story went viral on Reddit.
‘TheFoolMan‘ posted their tragic experience, and detailed how they had been mugged while riding the train. “As I travelled on the tube home, I was robbed. My bag [was] snatched from me forcibly with my switch inside. I got home and was a wreck.”
The player explained that they were okay financially, however it was losing their 700+ hours in Pokemon Shield that hurt. “I got robbed, everything was replaceable, except my time in that game. Everything I built and strove for. Everything is gone because Pokemon Shield doesn’t support cloud saves,” they said.
Sadly, the Trainer even lost special event ‘mons that you can no longer get. “Event mews from gen 6. Shiny legendaries including the most recent Zeroara event. Even many of my old Pokemon that I have trained and had with me since Gen 4. Gone.”
Game Freak / The Pokemon CompanyThey later posted an update, and said that they had reported the robbery to the police. Although the player said they weren’t very hopeful they would get their Switch back. The horrible incident put a spotlight on the Gen VIII release not having cloud save backups.
Many fans were outraged, and hit out at Nintendo and Game Freak for still not allowing the feature in the RPG in 2020. User ‘zooksmz’ exclaimed, “Having no cloud save support in 2020 is f**king ridiculous.” ‘WaffleyDootDoot’ echoed a similar sentiment and said, “It’s f**ked how there are NO CLOUD SAVES for Splatoon 2 and Pokemon games.”
When a Redditor pointed out Game Freak’s reason for not having them is cheating, another player ‘GlitchParrot’ responded with, “They found a way for Animal Crossing to not be able to duplicate items, they could do the same for Pokemon.”
The community continued to hit out at the RPG, and encouraged the topic creator to write a letter to both Nintendo and Game Freak. If nothing else, this story serves as an example of how important having a save backup function on the Switch really is.
Unfortunately for the Pokemon fan, they had imported years worth of characters from the Home app into Shield, which means they are gone forever. While many offered to send rare monsters to the user, they understandably are going to take a hiatus from the series for the time being.