Josh Sawyer, the director of Fallout: New Vegas, claims that manual saves “poison your spirit as a player” and are a mistake. Raphael Colantonio, the current creative director of WolfEye Studios and founder of Arkane Studios, agrees with this view.

Different save systems are a hot topic in video games, and if you’ve played many, you know the types: autosave, quicksave, cloud save, and manual save. In this case, we’re talking about manual saves because some influential game directors, like Josh Sawyer, view them as a mistake.

The Pentiment director stated on his X/Twitter account that manual saves “poison your spirit as a player” and are a mistake. He didn’t give much explanation as to why, but in a later post, he wrote: “They’re like chicken nuggets in video games: they give you security, but they’re bad for your health and poison your spirit as a player.”

Raphael Colantonio, creative director of WolfEye Studios and founder of Arkane Studios, known for Dishonored and Prey, also shares a similar opinion. However, he prefers to leave the choice to the player. “I don’t disagree, but I let the players decide how they want to play. Some simply can’t play without that,” he explained.

Why Do Some Directors Dislike Manual Saves?

While Sawyer hasn’t fully explained his reasoning, it’s possible that manual saves can break immersion or disrupt the difficulty of the game, especially when players overuse them in complex sections. That’s why many games incorporate autosaves or checkpoints to keep the experience smooth. But as Colantonio suggests, perhaps the best approach is to “let players decide how they want to play.”

Source: 3djuegos