Zelda: Breath of the Wild Hard Mode Will Not Overwrite Save Files

Good news regarding next week’s DLC for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — Hard Mode will have its own save file. Nintendo recently confirmed this on their UK website.

Hard Mode is part of Breath of the Wild’s first downloadable content called The Master Trials. Thankfully, you won’t have to overwrite your existing save file to play in the new difficulty setting. Right now your game can store up to 6 normal saves of the same file at a time, and Hard Mode will add an extra two.

Basically that means you can try out Hard Mode — called Master Mode outside of North America, apparently — and then go back to playing your campaign normally. Or you can play the whole thing on Hard Mode as long as you’re okay with the limited two save slots.

Of course, if you wanted to play on Hard Mode from the beginning, you could simply create a new user on your Wii U or Switch and start a new game under that name. Food for thought.

The new difficulty setting will alter a few parts of your game experience — all enemies get bumped up one class level, enemies fight better, and tough foes with treasure will appear on floating planks throughout Hyrule.

Other features of The Master Trials DLC include the Trial of the Sword, which, when cleared, allows the Master Sword to remain charged at all times. There’s also a mode that shows you everywhere you’ve traveled, an item that can make a fast travel point, and new themed armor.

The Master Trials DLC will be available to download June 30th. You can get it by purchasing Breath of the Wild’s Expansion Pass for $20. The Expansion Pass also includes another DLC, coming Holiday 2017.