I wish all games would just let you save whenever you want to! Why is using checkpoints and auto saves so common?
At least add a quit and save option if you want to avoid save scumming.
These days I just want to be able to squeeze in some gaming whenever I can even if it’s just quick sessions. That’s annoyingly hard in games that won’t let you save.
I wonder what the reason for this is?
The only reason is hardware limitation. I imagine it’s more difficult to load at any point in the game in a massive game due to how much is stored in your memory.
Let’s say you’re playing a game and there’s 6 NPCs outside and they’re doing their own thing.
If the game has a traditional save system, when you exit the save location it’s normal for these entities to rest let their position. Maybe at best their properties (maybe they were wet because of rain) are saved.
But it’s much easier to just not save any of this info and reload everything from scratch and only save your progress and location.
Some games seem to manage it quite well though? But yeah, they probably had to pit a lot more energy into implementing it.
I think some custom game engines have creative solutions for handling instant saving and loading. For example System Shock has save and load without any delay. But it is a fairily simplistic game at the same time.
Ironically Bethesda games track tons of stuff on the world state and still let you save pretty much anywhere.
That is one thing they got right I guess.