Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch is set to receive a pretty substantial update on the 19th of November where the game will see a whole host of exciting seasonal changes. As everyone’s islands gets coated in snow and multiple events take place across the colder months, the patch also allows players to transfer their save data. This is big news for those players wanting to transfer their entire island or resident to another island. For instance, those who have been playing on someone else’s Switch console can now move their data to their own island if they wish to do so on their own system.
Nintendo’s support page for the game breaks it down into greater detail, but here’s a snippet:
Entire Island Transfer
Use this feature if you wish to transfer the entire island and all residents to a new Nintendo Switch system. The island, all progress and customizations, your animal neighbors, the island resident representative, and any other residents that have been created on the island will be transferred.
This feature is helpful if you are replacing your Nintendo Switch system with a new one and all players who have played Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be using the new Nintendo Switch system. It is also the only way to transfer your island resident representative when you have not backed up your island.
You must have access to both the original system and the new system to use this feature.
Resident Move (Single Player Transfer)
Use this feature if you wish to transfer just one resident to a new Nintendo Switch system. The resident, the resident’s home, and most items held by the resident and kept in storage will be transferred to an island on the new Nintendo Switch system. The island resident representative cannot be transferred.
You can read the full rundown here.