Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is The Pokemon Company and Game Freak’s first dip into Generation 9, and like us, millions of fans cannot wait to dive into Paldea and explore everything the open-world region has to offer. But since the new location is so large and open, does this mean it’ll hog up your Nintendo Switch storage space? Here’s what we know about how big Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s file size is.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet File Size on Nintendo Switch
It goes without saying but physical copies of Nintendo Switch titles store most of their space on the cartridge rather than the console itself so you don’t need to worry about the game hogging up valuable memory if you’re going physical. Granted, game cartridges do store some data on your system, like your save file, but it’s a minuscule amount of real estate compared to a digital download.
Related: Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Version Exclusives Explained
As for the digital version, both Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet will take up 7GB of storage space each on your Nintendo Switch according to the official website, meaning if you opt for the double pack, you’ll need to have 14GB free. We’d recommend leaving some extra room for potential future DLC too since Sword & Shield’s Isle of Armor took up 1.16GB and The Crown Tundra used 1.1GB on top of the base game’s whopping 12.4GB size – assuming Gen 9 will get DLC, anyway. Hopefully, it does. And with the Paldea region being open-world, any upcoming downloadable content would almost definitely take up more room than it did in Gen 8.
All in all, if you still don’t have a microSD card and rely on your Nintendo Switch’s 32GB internal storage (64GB in the OLED version) to hold your games, now is a good time to treat yourself to one.
