My save is hosed. AGAIN.

[Ineffable Anathema]

This isn't the first time this has happened.
Loaded up the game to continue after having not played for some time, and guess what, I'm all the way back at the initial meeting with the 'kidnapper' now. When I'd last played, I was somewhere near halfway through episode 3, an area with boxcars and such. This is way beyond the meeting incident, obviously. What has happened to my save? Why does it keep resetting back to this point despite all progress I make? I don't understand this, I'd love to keep playing and finish the game but this is frankly ridiculous. The only load option it gives me is 'steam cloud' and that's the kidnapper meeting scene. Frustrated.

[Curtis@HeroesofTalon]

This happened to me when switching PCs, after the last session on my old PC and the sync I find out my finished Episode 4 reset me to the part next to the hedgemaze. Totally annoying since I'm playing on Nightmare and barely finished it last time.

[Ineffable Anathema]

This irks me, I have to fight the birds again, the tractor, the chainsaw guy, the bridge ... URGH! This game is hard enough without my saves getting massacred. Any clue how I can prevent it happening again once I get my game back to where it was?

[Joker]

"Alan Wake saves data to your "My Documents" folder (e.g. C:\Users\<username>\Documents) under Remedy\AlanWake. This contains resolution.xml and if enabled possibly some debugging information. Game regenerates these if not found. Your save game is stored under your Steam profile, and mirrored into Steam Cloud if that option is enabled."

You could make a backup of your save file.

[Ineffable Anathema]

I guess like with so many other games on Steam I'll have to rely on manual backups with this too. It just doesn't pay to spend the time playing these things then lose all of your progress to some bug, quirk, net blurb, update, or whatever. I will not be fighting that freaking tractor a *third* time, lol.