Pokémon Sword and Shield Will Have an Optional Autosave Feature

For the first time in the long-running series, Pokémon Sword and Shield will have an autosave feature for those who want it.

With every new generation of Pokémon games, the series gets a few improvements here and there. Sometimes they’re gameplay improvements, there are almost always graphical improvements, and sometimes there are quality-of-life improvements. One new feature coming to this year’s Sword and Shield is a feature most gamers take for granted these days.

In an interview with Game Informer, Pokémon Sword and Shield director Shigeru Ohmori confirmed that the new games will have an autosave feature.

For those who may be unaware of the term, autosave means the game will continuously save itself as you play, so you don’t have to navigate through various menus to save your progress manually. As Ohmori puts it, “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.”

However, if you prefer the traditional manual saving, that option is available too. The games will allow you to turn off the autosave feature if you so wish.

This could come in handy if you’re about to embark on a task that you want to be accomplished in a specific way. There may be a case where you know you won’t have the opportunity to retry a task if the game autosaves after you’ve accidentally completed the task incorrectly, such as trying and failing to catch a Legendary Pokémon. In this case, you can turn autosave off and stick with manual saves that you make yourself.

Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield will launch on the Nintendo Switch on November 15.