It’s 2017, Why Can’t I Save Anywhere?

Why is auto saving not mandatory in games? Pause Resume looks at the limitations and issues it can cause

[Goldby]

ohh boo hoo, you stopped playing horizon because you couldn't save every 2 minutes, heres a thought, walk down any path for 2 minutes and you will find a save point.

the option to save anywhere is nice, but it should never be a deciding factor for a game, afterall, that save anywhere feature might also screw you over if you have to overwrite your save in a spot that you cant possibly win at (low health, too many enemies)

[SideNote]

I'm with you. How bloody lazy do you have to be.

[ninsigma]

"that save anywhere feature might also screw you over if you have to overwrite your save in a spot that you cant possibly win at"
Certainly screwed myself over with that in pokemon before. Only strong enough to beat the first of the elite 4 but saved it after the first fight 😑

[ocelot07]

Did that my self on Fallout 3 a long time ago. No stim packs left to heal and no food or water to help get my HP up. Quick saved as soon as I got into a radio tower thinking it was save. Had super mutants outside that I barely just escaped from. I had like 2 HP left. If I went outside I was dead.

Took a step forward in this radio tower. Got shot by a wall turret. A wall turret I simply can't see unless I take at least 3-4 steps forward. The curret could see my legs after 1 step. So it was instant death if I took a step forward or a step outside.

Due to the quick save. Saving my progress as soon as I got into the building I was pretty much screwed. I had to reload a save which lost me about 5-6 hours worth of play. So yer screw quick saving.

[UnHoly_One]

Haven't you guys learned to keep multiple saves, just in case?

I know in some games that isn't an option, but in something like Fallout, I usually have a dozen saves or more at any given time.

[CorndogBurglar]

Saving anywhere is a design decision, not a technological limitation. Being 2017 has nothing to do with anything.

[FITSniper]

Agreed.

[Soc5]

What a great way to start a comment, "oh boo hoo"

All they have to do is use the witcher system it auto saves at important moments and at pre set times you select and you have the option to save anytime. Works for me

[CorndogBurglar]

I also fail to see how this guy says he doesn't have time to play much because he's a family man, yet he has time to fit in 3-4 hour gaming sessions.

I also have a family and thats about how much time I can play for each day as well. I don't see the problem, or how savepoints hinder this.

[boomtube1987]

games should have auto heal. Medic pack ect should be only for extreme difficult setting. This isn't the 90s.

[Goldby]

games should have auto heal if they are built into the lore of the game. aka not shooters unless its a medpac or medic.

autoheal is one of the banes of gaming. ahhh ive been hit by an RPG, let me just hide behind the table for 30 seconds to get full health/s

[nitus10]

He should play a Souls or Bloodborne game. You actually can save anywhere and the game pretty much does this every few seconds except if you die (and you die a lot unless you have really got gud) you start again at the last bonfire or lantern minus your souls or blood echoes and you have only one chance to get them back again. 🙂

[Cobra951]

I grew up playing games where you couldn't save at all. Playing through the excellent Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES without using the flute warps meant hoping power wouldn't fail for several days.

But I understood even then that the limitations were cost and technology, not game design. There is no excuse whatever nearly 30 years later for being unable to save your progress when needed in games. Gaming is surrounded by real life, where you get limited time to play, and unforeseeable interruptions. It is imperative to be able to save your progress at any time.

If game design calls for limited save points, then an exit-save system can be implemented, where restarting the game later loads the exit save, then deletes it. That prevents creep-and-save while taking real life into account.

[Goldby]

"There is no excuse whatever nearly 30 years later for being unable to save your progress when needed in games."

What about creative design towards the game.
Would dark souls be the game it is today if you could save where ever you wanted and not worry about having to restart a level?
some games it works for it, others, it is part of the design of the game

[NotoriousWhiz]

The exit save system would work just fine for Dark Souls. Basically it's like suspending your game. When you load it back up, your save is gone. It's just a way to quit without losing your progress. It's not a way to give you extra save points to exploit.

[The 10th Rider]

Yeah, I was going to mention that Fire Emblem using the same type of thing (or at least the console ones did, haven't played the 3DS games). You could 'battle save' in the middle of a match and you could only load it up once. It's basically as if the game had a built in suspend feature. That type of thing really should be included in every game nowadays.

[Chaos_Order]

Agreed. Games like Dark Souls and especially Until Dawn are deliberately made with autosaving in mind, while in many other games manual saving is a must to allow players to trial different possibilities and see whether they want to take that route or not. All games are different and are designed to give different experiences.

[Fist4achin]

I'm with you. Games have become rather easy with how many save points they offer. I recall platforming with just a handful of lives, getting to the end, having your ass handed to you, only to do it over again. Fun times!

[wsoutlaw87]

Suspend/resume and the damn pause button makes this whole argument pointless

[nitus10]

In the Souls and Bloodborne games, you only have one suspend save and you cannot pause the game so if you want a toilet-break you have to either exit the game or get to a relatively safe area and hope you are not invaded by some outsider.

[RyanShutup]

That would feel too much like cheating. I'm sure most devs opt not to include this because it would break their games. Get gud bruh...

[Razzer]

Uh....I have a full-time job and a family. I got the plat in Horizon. I'm about to take on the final boss in Persona 5. How the hell did do this without being able to "save anywhere"?! I must be a magician.

Nope. I'm just not so damn lazy to not travel to a save point.

How did I know you would bring up Zelda. So you don't mind having to fast travel to a town to BUY arrows over crafting them whenever, wherever but save anywhere should be "required"?

[wsoutlaw87]

Yeah. You can actually fast travel to save points. This is just silly

[KickSpinFilter]

With wife / kid, Mortgage, Job, and 2 freelance jobs, I usually get to play twice a week with solid times (3.5hrs), and maybe 15 min here and there but yet somehow (sarcasm) was able to Platinum the game. GG could have let you save anywhere but the save point are also part of the gameplay dynamic. I'd rather control the save point than a game do it for me. I've played games where it does that for you and have been stuck with a bad save forcing me to start the game over. Like you said game can go into pause resume, that usually takes care about 88% of your problems I would imagine anyways. You used to leave systems on for days since there were no saves. Really? not to play one of the best games this year cuz of that, is just bizarre. Perhaps it's time to find a new hobby.

[RavageX]

I personally think saving everywhere is too easy. There is no challenge if you die and are RIGHT back where you left off.

While I don't fully trust it, you can suspend your game these days if real life interferes.

[Duke19]

The PS4 saving the current state has been a life changer for me. Just pause the game, come back later, turn the system on and its right back where I left off.

[LordMaim]

Just as long as your wife doesn't eject your disc to watch a movie, not realizing that you were in the middle of the game. Just an example. Not something that actually happened. Not that I'm bitter. Dammit.

[wsoutlaw87]

People watch movies on discs?

[LordMaim]

Xbox One S pretty much banks on that, actually. :)

[Condemnedman]

how about giving people the option it's really simple. People then can choose what to do. instead of having it forced on them

[Goldby]

when theres a camp fire always within a 2 minute walk though, the option to save anywhere is wasted

[Phoenix76]

It’s 2017, Why Can’t I Stop Seeing Click bait Articles everywhere?

There. Fixed

[andrewsquall]

Except Horizon also did autosaves for you all over the place.

[Fearmonkey]

While I agree that I prefer saving anywhere, the campfire mechanism in Horizon made sure the player explored which worked well. There was enough save spots that I never felt upset when I died.

[Goldby]

plus the fact you run up press triangle and its saved, no clunky menus or anything like that

[OldGuyStillGaming]

Um
Pause game
Turn off system
Turn back on
Right where you left off
👍🏼

[DragonKnight]

What's perfect about your comment is that the name of the site is "Pause Resume"

Literally the name of the feature you're talking about.

[Nathan_Hale53]

Modern games these days, it is for design choice. Either for a challenge, a sort of loose lore reason, or to prevent cheating by constantly quick saving and quick loading. If you are that lazy to either back trace your steps, or go forwards and search for a point, you shouldn't write a whole article over something so trivial when writing said article probably took much longer than simply searching. If that is the one reason that keeps you from playing some of the best games of all time, both old and new, then you aren't much of a gamer.

[Yui_Suzumiya]

I prefer save anywhere like in Fallout and BioShock. Makes it so much easier, in my opinion

[Goldby]

and that is precisely why some games do not have a save anywhere feature, to help increase difficulty.

[bluefox755]

Most games do have an autosave, rarely are you ever very far from your last checkpoint. This is usually combined with frequent save points. How is saving still an issue for people?

[Goldby]

because they want to save, and save NOW! if nto remember they cant even make it past the tutorial without the option to save mid tutorial incase its too hard and needs a break

[kindkinesis]

it is the choice of the developer to pursue their vision of the game, who are you to limit their creative choices

[Tetsujin]

I'd say depending on the game, let the player decide on their own how often they can save. I haven't played Horizon so I can't comment on it, however Fallout 4 and Skyrim has options to save as the player wants. There's a lot of games where you can save anywhere on certain maps/areas however inside certain places it's limited, which I'm assuming a lot of people will debate that being a wrong idea as well for "challenging" reasons.

[Melankolis]

Because every game shall have rules...

[TheSaint]

What a dumb article.

[NickAwesome]

Save everywhere=cheating

[FITSniper]

Because it's meant to be a challenge to not be able to save anywhere.