I recently started playingJusant, a breakout indie from last year that I missed as I was scrambling to play everything I could before submitting my GOTY vote. Dontnod’s climbing game is terrific so far, and in the hour that I’ve played it’s already thrown a bunch of cool mechanical twists out to keep things interesting on the ascent.
As much as I’m enjoying it, Jusant does something that I can’t believe games are still doing. Like many games coming out today, it doesn’t have a manual save option. That isn’t my preference, but it’s fine, lots of games do it. The irritating aspect is that when you go to quit, it doesn’t give you any indication of how long it’s been since the last quick save. Again, this is something I can put up with, but only if the game tells you that it will save your progress when you quit. Jusant doesn’t do that. It just tells you that, “unsaved progress will be lost” if you decide to follow through on your threat to quit. It’s that combination — no manual save, no indication of the time since your last save, and no save and quit option — that adds up to be uniquely frustrating.
To be fair,Baldur’s Gate 3may have spoiled me.Larian Entertainment’s masterfulRPGdoes all three. You can (and should) manually save your game often. But, if you don’t want to take the time, there’s a quick save optionandan autosave that triggers at important moments. Best of all, whenever you go to save or quit, the game tellsyou down to the secondhow long it’s been since you last recorded your progress.
That doesn’talwaysmatter because you still might end up forgetting to save before a tough battle and lose an hour of progress. But I’m usually of the opinion that more saving options are better.
There are times when this isn’t the case. InResident Evil 2 Remake, the game limits you so that you’re able to only save at typewriters. This adds a sense of tension as you’re running around the police station, dodging Mr. X and vicious Lickers, because death could mean losing a chunk of progress. Similarly, in last year’s stellarAmnesia: The Bunker, you could only save once you returned to your safe room, which might be on the opposite side of the map. For horror games, tying saving to a specific location is crucial in creating the feeling that you may have ventured too far from safety.
Souls gamesgo the other direction, constantly saving as you play so any bad decision you make in the heat of the moment is written in stone.
On the other hand, in some games where your choices are important, the autosave kicks in immediately after significant decisions to prevent you from undoing your decision. In those cases, the save can feel like a prison door swinging shut behind you, forcing you to face the consequences for your actions. And, in roguelikes, you often can’t save progress at all; everything starts over with each run. Saving can be as crucial a mechanic as running, jumping, or shooting to the experience developers want to create, so I’m all for pointed uses of the save mechanic to create a mood.
I’m not talking about those cases. The developers behind those games should keep doing what they’re doing. But, for many (most?) games, saving is just saving. It’s an unsexy part of the experience that simply needs to function as unobtrusively and consistently as possible. In those cases, just give me a manual save,or tell me you’re saving my progress when I quit,or let me know how long it’s been since the last save, or preferably all three. All those options work for me. I just want to know my progress is safe.
