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Switch 2 Save, Cloud
& Storage Guide

Last updated: August 11, 2026

How saving works in Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, cloud backup options for Nintendo Switch 2, storage space requirements, and how to manage multiple characters without losing progress.

How saving works in Elden Ring

Elden Ring has no manual save button — it auto-saves for you. The game writes your progress to your Switch 2's storage whenever you rest at a Site of Grace, pick up a key item, or clear a boss, and it keeps your world state, inventory, rune level, and NPC positions in that file. You never have to remember to save; the system does it.

Where the file lives: your save is written to your Switch 2 internal storage (or, if you have set one, a microSD Express card). It is a small file — well under 50 MB per character — so saves themselves are never what eats your storage. The game install is the heavy part, covered further down.
Save triggerWhat gets saved
Resting at a Site of GraceYour position, flask charges, level, world and NPC state
Picking up key itemsItem added to inventory immediately and kept
Killing bosses / finishing objectivesProgress flags and unlocked areas
Using a Site of Grace to level upYour new rune level and spent points
Runes are the one thing death can cost you: when you die, unspent runes drop as a bloodstain where you fell. Reach it to recover them — die again before you do and they are gone for good. Your level and gear are never lost, only the runes. Bank runes at a grace often so a bad death stings less.

Cloud saves need a Nintendo Switch Online membership

This is the part a lot of newcomers miss: automatic cloud backup for your Elden Ring save is a Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) feature. With an active NSO membership and your console online, your save data uploads to Nintendo's cloud automatically in the background, and you can pull it back down on the same console or a different Switch 2 if something goes wrong. Without NSO, your save lives only on the console itself — if the system is lost, stolen, or fails, that save goes with it.

We are not going to dress this up: if you want a safety net for a 60-80 hour playthrough, the cloud backup is the straightforward reason to keep the subscription active. It is the difference between "my Switch died and I lost everything" and "I downloaded my save on the replacement."

TaskHowRequires NSO?
Save to the consoleAutomatic when you rest at a Site of Grace — no action neededNo
Back up save to the cloudAuto-uploads in the background while online with an active membershipYes
Restore a save after console lossSign in, download the cloud save from SettingsYes
Move a save to another Switch 2Cloud download, or the free "Transfer Your User Data" toolNo (transfer tool is free)
Keep your save after reinstallingSaves are stored separately from game data; they stay putNo
Run multiple charactersIn-game "New Game" from the title menu; each is its own slotNo
Turn the console's internet connection on regularly even if you mostly play offline. Cloud saves only upload when you are connected, so a Switch that never touches WiFi never backs up.

Storage: the ~64GB install is the real space problem

Tarnished Edition ships as a Game-Key Card on Switch 2. The cartridge in the box is a license key, not the game — the full title, base game plus Shadow of the Erdtree, downloads to your system and comes in around 64GB. That download lives on your internal storage or a microSD Express card, and the cart must stay inserted to play. So "storage" here means the space the game takes up, not where the cart sits.

The Switch 2 has 256GB of internal UFS storage. The system software eats about 7GB of that, leaving roughly 249GB. Subtract Elden Ring's ~64GB and you are down to about 185GB for everything else — other games, updates, screenshots. That fills faster than it sounds once you own a few large titles alongside the DLC.

What's using spaceSizeNotes
System software~7 GBReserved by the console; not your game space
Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition~64 GBBase game + Shadow of the Erdtree, downloaded from the Game-Key Card
Remaining for other titles~185 GB256 GB internal minus system minus the game
Plan before you buy. With only ~185GB left after Elden Ring, two or three other large Switch 2 games will have you shuffling installs. The fix is a microSD Express card, covered in the next section.

microSD Express, not a regular microSD

This trips up a lot of people who owned a Switch 1: the Switch 2 stores games on microSD Express cards only. A standard microSD (the UHS-I cards that worked fine in the original Switch) will not hold Switch 2 games. On Switch 2, a regular microSD card can only be used for things like screenshots and captures — it will not expand your game storage. If you buy the wrong card, it sits in the slot doing almost nothing useful for your library.

microSD Express cards come in capacities up to 2TB and slot straight into the console to add real game space. If you intend to keep Elden Ring installed next to other big releases, get an Express card with headroom — 512GB or 1TB takes the pressure off that 185GB remainder and means you rarely uninstall to make room. Check the label for "Express" before you buy; the faster bus is what Switch 2 requires for game installs.

Keep the Game-Key Card inserted whenever you play. The download lives on your system, but the cart is what authorizes the game, so don't shelve it thinking the install alone is enough.

Reinstalling won't wipe your save

If you delete Elden Ring to free space and later reinstall it, your character saves are safe. Save data is kept separate from the game's install data, so removing the game does not remove your progress — it sits in the console's save area (or your NSO cloud) until you explicitly delete it from Data Management. The same is true the other way around: uninstalling a save does not touch the game.

The one habit that removes all doubt: keep NSO cloud saves on. Then even if you format the console or it fails, your last uploaded save pulls back the moment you sign in. Treat the cloud as your backup and the console as your working copy.

Multiple characters, separate slots

Elden Ring supports several character slots at once, and each one is an independent save: its own level, gear, quests, and world state. Start a "New Game" from the title menu and your current characters are left exactly as they are — nothing is overwritten. There is no hard cap you will hit in normal play; the only limit is storage, and save files are tiny.

This is handy on Switch 2 specifically: keep one "real" run and a second experimental character to try a weird build, or a co-op-minded character for helping others. All of them back up to the cloud together if you use NSO. Just remember saves are tied to your Nintendo Account, so they follow your login, not the console.

FAQ

Can I copy my save to a USB drive for backup?
Not directly — Switch 2 does not expose per-game save copies to a USB stick. Your real backup path is Nintendo Switch Online cloud saves, which handle it automatically while you are online. Without NSO, the only copy is the one on the console.
If I delete and reinstall the game, do I lose my saves?
No. Save files are stored separately from game data, so uninstalling and reinstalling Elden Ring leaves your characters in place. They persist until you delete them yourself from Data Management — or, with NSO, until you remove them from the cloud too.
Can I share saves between two Switch 2 consoles?
Yes. With NSO, download your cloud save on the second console. Without it, use Nintendo's free "Transfer Your User Data" tool to move your account and saves to the other system. The same save can't be actively played on both at once — the cloud keeps the most recent version.
Do save files take up meaningful storage?
No. Each character save is under 50 MB, so even a handful of characters is a rounding error next to the ~64GB game install. Your storage worry is always the game and its DLC, never the saves.

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