PSA: Saving in Dragon’s Dogma 2 Doesn’t Work Like You Expect - Here’s What You Need to Know
22.03.2024 - 11:59
/ ign.com
The world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 can be a harsh place, filled with disgusting goblins, nefarious creatures of the night, and an autosave system that can leave you stuck in dangerous situations a little too often. Whether you’re taking your first steps beyond the Borderwatch Outpost, or preparing to face the harsh deserts of Battahl, you won’t want to completely rely on the autosave system to create the best checkpoints for you. Want to save yourself some trouble in the future? Read on to learn the quirks of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s save system and how best to use it.
Losing any amount of progress can be a major headache, and so Dragon’s Dogma 2’s quirky save system is best understood early before any tears are shed. Let’s start with the basics – you have one save slot, and that slot is constantly overwritten by three types of saves: manual saves, autosaves, and inn saves.
Manual saves can be made at any point via the System tab on the pause menu, either by hitting ‘Save and Continue’ or ‘Save and Return to Title Screen’.
Autosaves are what the name suggests. The game automatically saves progress before and after an enemy encounter, when speaking to certain characters, or, well… when anything eventful occurs in-game! This is all standard stuff, but that very same autosave can act as a blessing and as a curse.
Because Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t allow for multiple save slots, autosaves replace your manual save. That means, aside from making a save just before quitting, you’re basically at the whim of the autosave function. As such, you could be left in an awkward tactical position when loading back in if that save was just as a really powerful enemy appeared. Worse, you could potentially lose hours and hours of progress if the save becomes bugged.
For example, in my playthrough, I unknowingly climbed up into an out-of-bounds area that was substantially higher than anywhere else I’ve previously been to. After dropping off a ledge, the game autosaved, and I hit an invisible wall. With no option to climb back up, or safely climb down, my character was effectively stuck forever.
So, how did you get around a situation like this? That’s where the third type of save comes in: inn saves. These are semi-permanent saves that are created when you rest at an inn. They can only be overwritten by another inn save, which means there’s always an alternative to your autosave. An inn save is loaded from its own section of the main menu, and so is always kept safely isolated.
Going back to my ‘stuck out of bounds’ scenario, my only option was to bite the bullet and reload from my last inn rest. This sadly cost me a couple of hours of progress because inns are only found in towns and villages, and so you can journey for hours in the