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Pokemon Sword & Shield offers a lot of Pokemon to catch, so there's tons of replay value. You can form new teams and even assign different challenges that make each playthrough a unique experience. You can only have one save file at a time, so restarting the file is an essential part of replaying Pokemon Sword & Shield.

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Restarting a save file is a simple process in Sword & Shield, but it may be confusing if you've never done it before. There are also a few extra things you should do before deleting your data. Here's how you can restart Pokemon Sword & Shield and everything you should do before deleting your save file.

Updated November 23, 2023, by Sean Murray: Wondering how to restart Pokemon Sword & Shield? This guide has the answers for both what to do first and then how to restart your save file. We've updated this guide with improved formatting and more links to other helpful Sword & Shield topics.

What To Do Before Restarting Your Save File

Sword & Shield Starters
via Nintendo

There are two essential steps you should follow before you start a new game in Sword & Shield. If you don't do these two things, then you'll likely miss out on exclusive opportunities.

Catch Legendary & Mythical Pokemon

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You can catch most Pokemon in Sword & Shield as many times as you wish; however, there are a few Pokemon that you can only catch once per save file. You should make sure to find and capture each legendary creature so you can have an extra version of them in your new playthrough.

The legendary Pokemon in Sword & Shield's base game include Eternatus, Zacian in Sword, and Zamazenta in Shield. There are also legendary Pokemon to catch in the Isle Of Armor DLC and Crown Tundra DLC.

You can't transfer items to Pokemon Home, so make sure to trade them to other copies of Sword & Shield; otherwise, they'll be lost forever after resetting your save file.

Transfer Your Pokemon To Pokemon Home

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Pokemon Home is an application on the Nintendo Switch that allows you to transfer Pokemon out of your current save file and store them for future use. Before you restart your save file, you should transfer every Pokemon you may want to use again in the future.

Remember to transfer all legendary, mythical, and starter Pokemon into Pokemon Home since they're usually limited to one per save file.

You can download Pokemon Home on the Nintendo eShop and store 30 Pokemon for free. Unfortunately, you need to subscribe to hold more than 30 Pokemon at a time. The subscription costs $2.99 for 30 days, $4.99 for 90 days, and $15.99 for 365 days.

You can store 6,000 Pokemon if you have a subscription.

To transfer Pokemon from Sword & Shield to Pokemon Home, open the Pokemon Home app and press Pokemon. Click on Sword Or Shield, and you can then deposit Pokemon from the save file into Pokemon Home.

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How To Restart Pokemon Sword & Shield

Wooloo from Pokemon Sword and Shield

Once all that is done, you're ready to start the process of wiping your save data and restarting! There are two methods:

Permanently Delete Save Data

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  1. From the Switch's home menu, enter the System Settings
  2. Click Data Management
  3. Press Delete Save Data at the bottom of the screen
  4. Select Pokemon Sword & Shield
  5. Press Delete Save Data and confirm when the second prompt appears

Once you've confirmed, your game data will reset! Then, launch Pokemon Sword or Shield again to start a new adventure from the story's beginning.

Transferring Save Data To Another Switch

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You can also transfer your save game data to a different Nintendo Switch, so that it won't be permanently lost.

  1. From the Switch's home menu, enter the System Settings
  2. Click Data Management
  3. Click Transfer Your Save Data
  4. Click Send Save Data To Another Console
  5. Position the second Nintendo Switch console near the first one to transfer the data and follow the prompts.

This way, you don't permanently lose all of your progress from the game! However, you do need to have another Nintendo Switch console available for this to work.

Save game data can't be moved to or stored on a microSD card.

Next: Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Vs. Sword & Shield: Which Game Is Better?