A look at Switch game save modding: Minecraft BE, Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Zelda BotW, Sonic Mania and more!
The Switch has been hacked for quite a while now and since it also has a save manager, called Checkpoint, some people decided to start fiddling with game saves! Community efforts, mostly centered at GBATemp, have brought about hacks for games like Minecraft BE, Splatoon 2, XenoBlade Chronicles 2, Sonic Mania and much more!
Minecraft BE save hacks: Custom Skinpacks and Resource Packs, increased Rendering Distance and more!
Minecraft Bed Rock Edition was released for the Nintendo Switch 3 days ago and GBATemp user ‘GalaxyYT’ didn’t bother waiting a little bit before he started hacking its save files! Thankfully, Minecraft BE is based on the Windows 10 edition and uses the very similar same saves so hacking this game was breeze.

You can now hack Minecraft Bedrock edition for your Switch.. even though it’s been out for only 3 days!
GalaxyYT’s tutorial details how you can:
- Import custom Skinpacks so that your character can be an expression of thyself 😉
- Import Resource Packs so that you can customise your game to the maximum!
- Import Minecraft Windows 10 and Minecraft Pocket Edition (Android/iOS) worlds!
- Change the render distance and perhaps meddle with other graphics options
To do these hacks, you must hack your Switch, OWN the game and have a computer at hand. That being said, if you have all these requirements, you can go make your Minecraft experience more fun right now by following the tutorial below!
Splatoon 2 hacking: Adding weapons, editing your character and lots more!
If you think that FPS games with regular old guns have become stale, then you’ll be pleased to know that Splatoon 2 has a pretty fully featured save editor currently in development. This save editor is called SplatHeX and it supports both Splatoon (Wii U) and Splatoon 2.
LeanYoshi, the main developer, has been gradually adding support for more Splatoon 2 features and as of right now, you can do the following with Splatoon 2 saves:
- Add/Remove weapons from your inventory and modify the amount of turf they inked
- Edit your player’s attributes which include changing their level, look (clothes/hair/eye colour and skin tone) and amount of money among others
- Edit your Octoling’s attributes and even play as them after you unlock them!
- Many other things such as a hero mode, gear and salmonrun editor.
Like the above hacks, you need a hacked Switch, the actual game and a computer on hand to be able to hack your saves. Now, if you have these 3, install Checkpoint on your Switch and you can get hacking!
Other titles that have save hacks
This article would be tremendously long if every game save hack got a paragraph. As a result, you can now check out this list to see which other games also have save hacks or editors:
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with GUI – based on ‘Thealexbarney’ ‘s XbTool
- Zelda Breath of the Wild editor Switch App – lets you hack your inventory, rupee amount and more
- Sonic Mania hacking – This isn’t save hacking as this allows you to run mods from the PC version and apply them to the Switch game. Apparently, its saves are identical to the PC version so they can be edited with ManiaSaveEdit (thanks for the heads up @Codenamegamma)
- Hollow Knight
- Fire Emblem Warriors – Also has a UI version
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Pokemon Quest
- Bayonetta 1
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Skyrim with tutorial – thanks for the heads up and nice Skyrim hacks @Phyllbo_Baggins
- Probably others I forgot to list down!
Conclusion
Remember, hacking your Nintendo Switch could potentially get you banned so do this at your own risk! If you have any issues/problems with the above, simply report them to their respective authors via the links in this article.
Minecraft BE Save Hacking tutorial: https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-modify-minecraft-bedrock-edition-infinite-chunks-custom-assets-etc.508348/
SplatHeX: http://leanny.github.io/SplatHeX.html
DON’T FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR GAME SAVES BEFORE EDITING THEM!
N.B: Please note that I could not test the software mentioned in this article as I currently do not own a Switch. The best efforts have been made to report accurate information through online research! – Aurora.
First
checkpoint made my day the other night. I was able to transfer my 3.0 switch save to my 5.0 switch for Zelda Breath of the Wild. It went so smoothly i am a happy camper.
That’s sad if you hack on Splatoon 2 and play online.
save edits are harmless
This is all good and fun but I’m still waiting for the ability to actually run game images. It surely can’t be long now. I really want to stop paying AAA game prices for portable casual gaming…
You already can.
Just check the tutos on gbatemp.
(your right, skyrim’s price motivated me…)
Psp2hdtv
Read ultra slim ps4 that only uses
Pspemu HD
Lol
Great progressie on the switch tho