Saving is a core component of modern video games. No longer 40-minute experiences relegated to arcades or 8-bit cartridges, today’s games can last youhundreds of hoursand require you to invest a lot of time into them. Just a few console generations ago, you had to buy an entire separate peripheral to save your games on a console and now it’s a key feature.
Yet in some games, the simple and normally reassuring concept of saving is turned against you. These games punish you for saving - be it through gameplay consequences or the ever-encroaching feeling that you’re using up a limited resource. Here are the ones that made us suffer most.
When Resident Evil came out in 1996, it shocked audiences with howtense and unforgivingthe gameplay was. There were too many zombies and not enough ammo to go around; the remake turned this difficulty up to 11. In the classic games - those preceding RE4 - you were only able to save if you had an ink ribbon.
This design choice, bordering on cruelty, makes every save something to be carefully considered. You need to make abundant progress to justify using up an ink ribbon, and if you die on the way to the save room - which will happen - you’ll lose all that progress. You’re also allowed only a few saves if you want a high rank.
RE Code Veronica punishes you for simply looking at ink ribbons. Even if you don’t pick them up, viewing them in the inventory will lock you out of getting an A rank. The only point you can save the game is at the start of Disc 2 (the halfway point in the PS2 version).
Lisa: The Painful is a game about living with the consequences of your actions. The Steam description promises a life-ruining gaming experience: if you choose to play on Pain Mode, that’s not far from the truth.
In Pain Mode, the crows you interact with to save explode after you exit the menu. They will explode even if you choose not to save the game, robbing you of the opportunity to keep your progress. There are only a few crows scattered throughout the game. This keeps you from being able to savescum or try out different party members: you have to bear the consequences of your actions.
Fear and Hunger is a game where you are definitivelynotthe chosen one. In its grim, dreary world, your character must struggle for mere survival. Part of what draws the fanbase to this game is its downright sadistic design. Even the save mechanics are not left untouched.
In most cases, the beds you save at are locked behind a coin toss. If you win, you can save the game and rest. If not, you’ll face different enemies - some of whom are too strong to realistically beat.
The very first bed you encounter doesn’t let you save even if you win the coin toss fight, because your character is too full of adrenaline to sleep. You have to walk around a bit for it to wear off.
Leave it to Kojima to make games that are incrediblydetailed and immersive. In MGS 3, saving is the equivalent of Snake going to sleep in-game. It heals his injuries, and at one point you may even experience an unreleased game’s demo as Snake’s nightmare the next time you load.
But that comes with its caveats: a sniper battle, for example, is a terrible time to fall asleep. If you save during the boss fight with The End, he will capture the sleeping Snake. You’ll be forced to replay a small portion of the game to make up for the progress you lose: The End only dumps Snake in the Groznyj Grad cells instead of killing him, because he wants an honourable duel.
You won’t get punished if you wait a week after saving. If Snake sleeps for an entire week, he’ll wake up to find that The End has died of old age.
One of thebest licensed gamesaround, Alien: Isolation is proof that horror games can be scarier than movies if the scares aren’t limited to cutscenes. In Isolation, you’re not safe even while saving the game. To save, Amanda has to scan her keycard at emergency phone booths.
Each save station takes several seconds to let you access the menu - time you spend frozen in place, though you’re able to look around and see if the alien is about to get you. Mercifully, you get two save files that allow you to recoup most of your progress if you get soft-locked.
There are five Tomb Raider games on the PS1. Two of them - the third and fourth - are among the hardest games on the system. With Tomb Raider 3, the consensus among fans is that the game was simply too hard. This is exacerbated due to its save system.
In the PS1 version of Tomb Raider 3, you can only save by using a savegame crystal. These appear at specific points and can only be used once. Tomb Raider 3 is an incredibly challenging game no matter what platform you play it on, but the PS1 version may have gone too far - if you used up the one precious save each crystal you were allowed in each area, you would be locked into the situation and couldn’t get a do-over. The PC version allows infinite saves at any point you wish, making it somewhat easier.
Though it originally proved divisive with its AI companions, Final Fantasy 12 has come to be appreciated as a classic in recent years due to its amazing production values and Star Wars-esque story. Even the gameplay has been reappraised: that said, the blue Crystalbug is a bigger liar than Ondore.
This pesky enemy disguises itself as a save point: it’s essentially a mimic but worse, because it can take your party by surprise when you desperately need to save your progress in a dungeon. At least it has the decency to become a real save point once you defeat it.
In Undertale, it’s not where you save that you get punished for, but rather what you do with that save file. If you thought savescumming gives you a clean slate,think again. The game stores its data on your decisions independently of your actual save slot.
So if you accidentally kill Toriel and try to revert to an earlier save, you’ll get a mind-bending fright when Flowey reminds you of what you did. And if you complete a No Mercy Run, you can forget about ever getting a happy ending even if you delete your save file and start over.
