The ability to soft reset has been an important part of the Pokemon series for decades. Players always want the best Pokemon in their collection, and with starters and Legendary creatures, that means suffering at the hands of the random number generator. For the last few entries there was a (semi) quick and easy way to reset the game, returning to the opening screen to load your save fresh. It’s different now. Here’s how to soft reset in Pokemon Sword and Shield.
How to Soft Reset
Previously there was a certain sequence of buttons you could press to soft reset your game. Currently there is no way to do that within Sword and Shield. However, there are still quick ways to restart the game. Thanks to the Switch and its menu, you can handle this pretty quickly, though it will take longer than the previous methods allowed, similar to the method of starting a new game.
To soft reset in Pokemon Sword and Shield you need to close the game and start it up again. Hit Home and hover over the game’s icon, then hit X. In the new menu you can choose Close to shut the game down, then start it up again. So not really a soft reset, but as close as we have at this time. Sword and Shield changes a lot of things about the game, some of which make soft resetting irrelevant. For example, starters cannot be shiny when you first get them. Instead you’ll need to breed them.
Whenever you want to soft reset, make sure you’ve got a good save to reset to. Also while doing anything where you might want to soft reset, make sure to turn off Auto Save in the game’s menu. Otherwise you need to watch for the auto save icon in the top right of the screen. You won’t want to do this while it is saving, and if it saves after the event you want to reverse you’ll be stuck. The game has changed, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. Soft resetting seems to be in the latter.
With all that said, that’s all there is to know about how to soft reset in Pokemon Sword and Shield.
