Lost Saved Game Fix ((If you have available backups))

[Splatter]

To start off, if you don't have anything in your backups folder, this guide won't help you. I'm sorry.

A little bit of my own story, if you want to skip to the answer just scroll down to the break.

My partner is absolutely obsessed with this game. It's gotta be her biggest comfort right now, and is something that helps them unwind after work. She wanted to show it to me last night, and when she hit "Continue" on the game, it started a new game, and when she exited out, she saw that it completely wiped her save data.

She had already sunk multiple hours into the game, so as you can imagine, she was absolutely devastated. I had plans to go out soon after and when I was gone, they searched all over for some kind of answer, but nothing was definitive. By the time I got home, we had to go to bed due to the time, plus she had exhausted herself from researching and just wanted to step away from it at that point.

So, I booted up their laptop this morning and did my own file searching, and ended up fixing her issue after a lot of trial and error!

Anyways, here's what you gotta do.

---

The Solution

To be safe, make sure to disable steam cloud for Dredge before messing with the files.

First, follow these paths to open up both the "saves" and "backup saves" folders:

C:\Users\*INSERT NAME*\AppData\LocalLow\Black Salt Games\DREDGE\saves

and

C:\Users\*INSERT NAME*\AppData\LocalLow\Black Salt Games\DREDGE\backup-saves

There are going to be two types of files that you want to pay attention to. The "dredge-save0.bin" file(s) with an icon (which I'll call "active" files), and the ".bak_#" files that don't have an icon and can't open on their own (I will call these files "inactive" files).

The "active" saves are the ones that the game will run in-game. The "inactive" ones are old backups, and inaccessible if you don't change them to the same type of file as the active ones are.

So! Look through the inactive files in the backups folder and delete any that are dated after the creation of the "new game". Repeat this process with the active files from the saves folder.

Once that's done, take the most recent "inactive" file with your old save and move it from the backups folder to the saves folder. Then, rename the file to end in ".bin" instead of ".bak_#".

For example, my backup was named "dredge-save0.bin.bak_2". I renamed it to "dredge-save0.bin".

Your computer will more than likely prompt you saying that the file may become unusable if you do this. Don't worry about this and just continue.

Boom! The inactive file should change to an active file. Launch Dredge and your saved game should be ready to go!

Aaaand that's it! I really hope this was helpful! Feel free to leave extra questions if you have them, and if you run into any issues along the way, I'll do my best help as well!

I hope y'all have a good day. ^^

[Nikas Zekeval]

This post needs to be pinned. I've had TWO games crash in the Stellar Basin, and this let me get back one of them.

[Nycto]

You're a lifesaver !! ❤️❤️

[bsg_joel]

Firstly, I'm very sorry your partner ran into this issue. I'm still not sure what's causing some save files to experience this problem, but I'm very glad you were able to use the new backup system to restore it for her.

Secondly, thank you for typing up this guide for people! I'm going to pin it for now so that it might help other players.

[Arazo]

thx

[huwpioden]

Lost my game saves again today. Game running latest patch, the backup save game trick above not working :-(

[bsg_joel]

Originally posted by huwpioden:

Lost my game saves again today. Game running latest patch, the backup save game trick above not working :-(

Sorry you've encountered this issue. Could you describe the steps you've taken?
Do you see the backup-saves folder at all?
If so, are there any files in there?
Have you tried restoring any of them by moving them to the regular saves folder, and renaming it to match the existing save file?

[huwpioden]

First off I 'verified' all the local files through Steam. This advice was from Team 17 support.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1562430/discussions/2/3823034248716310005/

When that didn't work I followed the procedure described in this thread, moving a file from /bachup-saves to /saves and renaming to lose the .bak

Why has this happened? I'm running the latest patch. Can anything be done? I was almost at the end of the game :-(

[bsg_joel]

If you have files in your backup-saves, I do believe that we can fix this! Maybe you could jump into our discord where I can assist you further? Alternatively, you could open a thread in the "Report a Problem" sub forum and Team17 will respond to you.

[huwpioden]

Thanks Joel. Will do :)

[LIGHTING-sense]

Jesus, very grateful for your method! i nearly start another save

[oku]

Well that was a shipwreck until I saw your post. How does this happen? Will it occur again I wonder. Eleven hours, 25% achievements finished.... and recovered !!!

[diarandor]

I had the same problem and lost my savegame, but I restored it with the last backup.
Thank you for mentioning the backups folder!

[chaosgremlin]

Omg! You're the best. I was losing my mind.

[Sueko]

Sad,I have lost three backups.

[Dr.Smith]

Thanks for this. Just downloaded the new patch today and pushed 'continue' on the title screen only to have a new game cutscene. Using this method has allowed me to restore my pre-patch save.