Extremely annoying save game bug

[Brigador Lemur]

So, I had to start from the beginning in Prey recently because of a few bad decisions I had made during my first run, hadn't yet completed it, but now I've encountered this extremely annoying bug.
The bug in question involves that when I step out of the simulation lab, it seems the game thinks I'm much further along in the game then I really am, the lobby is full of Typhons you're not supposed to encounter right now like Cystoids and a Weaver.
I've tried starting a new game two times, the second time I completely deleted the campaign file in the new game menu, yet the bug persists, this bug also prevents me from progressing any further in the story because of this.

[Tox Laximus]

Pay peanuts, get monkeys...

[Epictet]

Got exactly the same problem. No more objectivs, no loots in the lobby as if the game thought I'd been here before and looted everything. And the place if full of ghosts and weawers.

[Brigador Lemur]

Originally posted by __-Canigou-__:

Got exactly the same problem. No more objectivs, no loots in the lobby as if the game thought I'd been here before and looted everything. And the place if full of ghosts and weawers.

This bug is utterly horrid. :(
I honestly thought that the patch they released recently would have fixed that, but it didn't and I think they aren't that aware about this save game corruption.

[Breach]

I guess there are leftover .level files (which keep state of the world). Go to C:\Users\<profile name>\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\SaveGames

Make a backup of your Campaign0 folder (just in case):

Options:
- Delete Campaign0 - you'll have to start from the beginning
- Enter your latest save (before leaving the map) delete all files ending in .level

You should only have save.CSF and save.meta (and maybe simulationlabs.level but I don't think so).

[Brigador Lemur]

Originally posted by Breach:

I guess there are leftover .level files (which keep state of the world). Go to C:\Users\<profile name>\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\SaveGames

Make a backup of your Campaign0 folder (just in case):

Options:
- Delete Campaign0 - you'll have to start from the beginning
- Enter your latest save (before leaving the map) delete all files ending in .level

You should only have save.CSF and save.meta (and maybe simulationlabs.level but I don't think so).

Hm, I haven't tried out that, gonna have a go and see if that works.

[botfwok[RUS]]

I use an interpreter, I hope you understand ...
Here the problem lies in the loading of safes from the Steam server, it saves the entire client, along with the saved games, no matter how you delete the save, the Steam will load you this data indefinitely

[botfwok[RUS]]

I suffer from the same mistake, I've tried a lot

[Brigador Lemur]

Originally posted by Breach:

I guess there are leftover .level files (which keep state of the world). Go to C:\Users\<profile name>\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\SaveGames

Make a backup of your Campaign0 folder (just in case):

Options:
- Delete Campaign0 - you'll have to start from the beginning
- Enter your latest save (before leaving the map) delete all files ending in .level

You should only have save.CSF and save.meta (and maybe simulationlabs.level but I don't think so).

It worked!
Thank you so very much, Breach!

[botfwok[RUS]]

I deleted the files not in a long section, Breach is right so you can delete the save, I have the current that deleted it so it's OK, you can completely delete the Campaign0-1-2 files and not selectively since they are created again

[Breach]

Originally posted by Brigador Lemur (SWE):

Originally posted by Breach:

I guess there are leftover .level files (which keep state of the world). Go to C:\Users\<profile name>\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\SaveGames

Make a backup of your Campaign0 folder (just in case):

Options:
- Delete Campaign0 - you'll have to start from the beginning
- Enter your latest save (before leaving the map) delete all files ending in .level

You should only have save.CSF and save.meta (and maybe simulationlabs.level but I don't think so).

It worked!
Thank you so very much, Breach!

Good. It's an incredibly stupid bug to have. I'm really starting to question whoever did QA on this title.

[Brigador Lemur]

Originally posted by Breach:

Originally posted by Brigador Lemur (SWE):

It worked!
Thank you so very much, Breach!

Good. It's an incredibly stupid bug to have. I'm really starting to question whoever did QA on this title.

Yeah, you just gotta wonder who they put in charge of that and WHY this bug was not detected.
I mean, its easy to replicate.

[Kanatsız Kuş]

Anybody solve the problem?

[Brigador Lemur]

Originally posted by NOOB ツ:

Anybody solve the problem?

Its long sinced fixed by Arkane Studios with a patch they released not long after the game came out.

[Pagliacci]

Originally posted by Brigador Lemur:

Originally posted by NOOB ツ:

Anybody solve the problem?

Its long sinced fixed by Arkane Studios with a patch they released not long after the game came out.

Yeah unfortunately I have encountered this bug yet again in 2022. This thread helped thankfully.

[Dogma]

For anyone playing this today, the bug persists. It does seem related to cloud saves sync, though.

Originally posted by Breach:

I guess there are leftover .level files (which keep state of the world). Go to C:\Users\<profile name>\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\SaveGames

Make a backup of your Campaign0 folder (just in case):

Options:
- Delete Campaign0 - you'll have to start from the beginning
- Enter your latest save (before leaving the map) delete all files ending in .level

You should only have save.CSF and save.meta (and maybe simulationlabs.level but I don't think so).

In addition to this, (I bought mine at GOG, but the same will probably apply to the Steam version of the game) there's a temp folder inside the campaign folder that also contains .level files. I had to disable cloud sync and delete those as well.

After this I played a bit, overwrote saves with my progress and turned cloud sync back on. All quest, environment status, spawn and item issues were solved.

I did this to fix a NG+ run. I have yet to see what happens if I load an old save that would bring me back to the end of the story.

Edit: This ruined progression for the older saves and makes the game crash on those when trying to cross from the hangar to the exterior of Talos 1. Thankfully NG+ can be created again in another campaign slot instead of overwriting slot 1 (0 in folders).


From now I'll only keep:
- 1 manual save for each campaign to overwrite at the end of each session.
- Use quicksaves for progressing through the session in case bugs appear.
- Leave the max 3 autosaves do their thing too.
- NG+ always on a different campaign slot.

This is probably how it was intended. I'll update this in case it also leads to save game bugs.