An Animal Crossing: New Horizons player with over 500 hours in the game is heartbroken after their island is seemingly deleted. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the latest entry in Nintendo's wildly popular life sim franchise. Each game in the series encourages players to invest a significant amount of time as they customize their island, recruit villagers to live there, collect items, and more. Animal Crossing's use of a real-time clock limits how much gamers can do in their game in a single day, but it still doesn't take too long for one to rack up massive save files.
Considering how much time players spend in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it's not surprising that many stress about the possibility that they lose their island through accidental deletion, save file corruption, or whatever else. Save files being attached to Switch consoles as opposed to their cartridges has exacerbated these fears, as a broken Switch console would potentially mean losing one's Animal Crossing island. Nintendo has responded to these concerns by letting Animal Crossing: New Horizons players back-up their save data to the cloud, though this service does require one to be signed up for the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.
TikTok user jeskask8s did apparently sign up for Nintendo Switch Online for the purpose of backing up her Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, but something apparently went wrong. In a viral TikTok video, jeskask8s sobbed as she described a recent incident where, after a hiatus from the game, she tried to show her friend her island Crownville. Jeskask8s brought her Switch to work to show her friend her island that she was "so proud of," only for the game to say it required an update. The TikTok user then downloaded the update, but washeartbroken to see that it seemingly deleted her island. Click here if the TikTok video doesn't load.
Jeskask8s explained in her video that she called Nintendo for help on getting her island back since she was signed up for Nintendo Switch Online, but according to customer service, she apparently did not back up her save data correctly. This meant she lost her island, her villagers like Pietro, and all the progress she made in the game. It's not 100% clear exactly what happened to cause jeskask8s Animal Crossing: New Horizons island to be deleted, but those still playing the game should be sure to double-check their cloud data is uploaded correctly so they can avoid a situation like this.
The Animal Crossing community has left thousands of comments on the video, many offering their condolences for the TikTok user's deleted island. Others chimed in with their own experiences with their Animal Crossing island save data being erased. In the video's description, jeskask8 said that she is "not sure" if she will have the strength to rebuild her island, but asked if anyone would like to donate tools, items, or bells to help her rebuild her island.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.