Gamers and Switch fans had a minor freakout over an apparent quirk to the Nintendo Switch Online service involving cloud-based save games.
The issue was that Nintendo apparently hadn’t made it clear what would happen to your saved games stored in the cloud when your subscription to Switch Online Services ran out. Some gamers took this as a sign that you needed to keep an active account in order to access your saves, it turns out that this wasn’t the case.
Nintendo has revealed that users who cancel their Switch Online membership will have six months to recover their cloud saves.
According to a response provided to IGN on the topic:
If a Nintendo Switch Online membership expires, users won’t be able to access their Save Data Cloud backups. However, Nintendo will allow users who re-subscribe within 180 days to access their previous Save Data Cloud backups
Nintendo Switch Online launched in the US on September 18 and in the UK on September 19.And those who sign up get access to back catalogue of retro games like Super Mario Bros. 3, and The Legend of Zelda. Although you won’t need online service to access multiplayer in some games on the Switch, Fortnite being a prime example. One downside is that since Nintendo is concerned about hacking in some games, cloud saves are not supported on all games, titles like ike Splatoon 2 and Dark Souls: Remastered are not usable with this feature.