This game has no manual saving...

[Prometheus]

I was interested in this title but having no manual saving system is literally a deal breaker. You can play the game for 15-20 minutes during the first level, then quit and it will have you restart from the beginning...

Such a poor design choice it's staggering. I'm quite suprised nonsense like this is still being pulled off...

[YourFriendlyKebab]

I'm very interested in the game but I will probably wait some weeks to see if anything changes. Also our profile pictures :D

[kmlkmljkl]

Hell I'd even appreciate autosaves at literally any point other than just the chapter end. Major turn off tbh

[kmanitou81]

Then I'll wait like I did with KCD. Limited RL time, dudes.

[destroyermaker]

They won't change it; it would break the limited time mechanic.

[Kwantro]

Originally posted by destroyermaker:

They won't change it; it would break the limited time mechanic.

If the state of everything, including the time, is saved it wouldn't break anything. It might break the tension created by knowing if you accidentally run into someone you might screw up, but still I'd rather be able to save to be able to go away from the game and come back later than play a full hour+ and get to the end of a chapter or lose all progress.

It's an interesting game. I just think saving would make it more accessible.

[destroyermaker]

Thinking about it more, I see no reason not to add a "save upon quitting" mechanic.

[wicked lester]

How long are levels in this game?

Edit: Never mind, I saw the answer in another thread. A freaking hour! I think this is a deal-breaker for me as well. It kept me from finishing Hitman: Agent 47 too.

[Pete_Bottomley]

Hey all,

Thanks for the discussion here - it was definitely an intentional design choice and as destroyermaker mentioned, we felt it fit in with the time mechanic.

There are only 2 longer chapters in the game which are 60 minutes in length. We designed the world to get immersed and hopefully lose yourself in. We appreciate sometimes people only have 20 minutes or so to pick up and play a game in a day, but with the systems and the way you investigate leads, we didn't think it would make too much sense if you were picking it up and putting it down in short bursts and instead felt that most people would be OK seeing a fully chapter through before saving and exiting (much like when reading a book I guess!).

Alonside the 2 one hour chapters are shorter 30 or 15 minute sections which connect the game together so there should never be too much time between saves.

Hope that helps give a bit of perspective to our approach when considering these things! :)

[destroyermaker]

I get all that but still think you should add a save upon quit mechanic, if only because you never know when you might suddenly have to stop playing. Especially for players with children. The save would be deleted upon loading it, so you couldn't save scum or anything.

Basically, the immersion would be preserved except for rare cases when you suddenly have to leave. And in those, I think everyone would prefer not having to start over. The dossier helps you pick up where you left off, also. Kingdom Come added this feature later on and the community really appreciated it (after having a similar reaction to the save system at launch).

Knowing how short the chapters are, it's not a huge deal. Just would be nice and appreciated.

[Pete_Bottomley]

Hey - it's definitely something to consider, as you mentioned, it would help the people that have to stop playing the game because of external factors (such as having children!) which we obviously don't want to dissuade people by.

Will be sure to update the thread once we've have a chat about this in the team!

[kmlkmljkl]

I doubt this will instantly change your view, but not even having a choice in how long to play the game is literally the only thing stopping me from instantly buying the game. I was looking forward to this game for months, and just that one thing crushed my hopes.
I'm sure I sound like a whiny ♥♥♥♥♥ right now but I don't want to plan ahead of time to see if I have at least an hour free.

[Pete_Bottomley]

Totally understand your concern, kmlkmljkl and all good points to consider :)

[destroyermaker]

Thanks kindly.

[Gloriam Louis Armstrong]

While I understand it's a choice because of the time mechanic, I also feel it should be the players choice if and when to save. If you wanted to give the added difficulty of not being able to save that could have been a difficulty setting for when you start the game or a chapter.

If you want to call it easy mode, go ahead, I don't really care.

As it stands, I'm not sure I'm willing to invest into the game when knowing I can't play the way I want to.

I hope you can consider this for a future patch, have a nice day. :)

[DizzieDawgie]

Is there a "time skip" mechanic?

I wouldn't necessarily mind getting "caught" 45 minutes into a level, if I can then take what I learned to speed through the chapter again from the beginning, but since my impression is that things are on a timer, I'd want to be able to skip time (e.g. 5/10/15 minutes at a time), rather than just idle in real-time once I've already got an efficient run mapped out.