Backing up and restoring save files

[Mesikämmen]

Just lost my first DLC Stalker run due to what I assume is a bug? Slept for 1 hour to save the game inside the main hangar building in the airfield yesterday with plenty of condition and all the needs satisfied, quit the game and this morning while hopping in to play for a few hours while drinking my morning coffee I discovered that my save game is gone. Like completely gone. There's no option to resume the game or load a save file like I had just died in-game.

Now I don't mind it so much since I was only in day 40 or so and I was just beginning to explore the new content. It's just that this is the third survival playthrough that I've lost due to a bug. My 200 day Stalker run before it I was mauled by a moose while I was half way up a cliff while climbing the rope and the 300 day Stalker run before it I drowned on the stairs at the prison.

So yeah... I'm getting quite tired of losing my saves due to issues that are no fault of mine. I decided that I'll start backing up my saves every few gaming sessions IRL but there's just one problem. All the instructions online on how to do it are either from years ago and thus don't work anymore or are just really confusing. That or the threads in Steam/Reddit get taken over by people who are really against save scumming and are quite vocal about it.


So to the point of me making this thread. How do you backup and restore save files on the survival mode nowadays? I'd appreciate it if someone could walk me through it.

[Bobywan]

To backup your save file, you just copy paste the file from
C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Local\Hinterland\TheLongDark
The survival files are called sandbox
There is also a file user with a number, I think it's a file with your feat.

[Mesikämmen]

Originally posted by Bobywan:

To backup your save file, you just copy paste the file from
C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Local\Hinterland\TheLongDark
The survival files are called sandbox
There is also a file user with a number, I think it's a file with your feat.

Originally posted by bladerunner97:

Type this in Windows Search and hit enter.
%USERPROFILE%\appdata\local\Hinterland

Copy the two folders safe and restore them whenever you like. I make a backup before\after every session. Your survival runs are in TheLongDark\Survival

The text bellow, in a batch file will copy the save game folder to the Desktop. It is user specific. Meaning it only copies the folder of the currently logged in Windows user.

A batch file is just a text file with the .txt extension changed to .bat
Make a new text file, paste in the following and save it. Then change the .txt file extension to .bat

@Echo off
@Echo.
rmdir /s/q %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Hinterland\ 1>nul 2>&1
xcopy /E %USERPROFILE%\appdata\local\Hinterland\ %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Hinterland\ >nul
Echo.
@Echo Save game folder copied to your Desktop.
Echo.
PAUSE

Alright so if I understood this correctly I just have to copy and paste the Hinterland folder in appdata/local to my desktop and then copy + paste it back there to restore the save file? Do I have to turn off cloud syncing on Steam? I read something like that earlier when trying to find out how to backup saves.

Oh and thanks for answering my question lads. Really appreciate it.

[Bobywan]

Yes you just have to save it back to the original folder to reroll your save to the date you made it.

[iwasa]

You might keep the save game folder open and when you quit or about to quit (assuming a PC) you swap out of the game and look at the date time stamps on the user file and save game. If the date times are the same or within a minute of each other you're safe. If not, then you have a big problem with that save. But at least you know you have a problem.

Back a year or so or more ago, there was a tendency of the game's save game function to fail and it would be obvious only in the result - loss of game progress. As best I could tell, once the game code went to 64-bit the problem basically went away. At least I never saw it again. Knockonwood.

One consequence of that period was I always keep the save game folder open and always note whether the date time notation of the game and user file are the same or within a minute of each other. It became an ingrained habit for me.