Save data deleted?!

[galkimera]

Hello, after several month, I wanted to get back to "The Long Dark" on my PS4. I made the update and launched the game. After checking the changelog, I headed to the Wintermute menu, and saw with horror and wrath that my save of 50+ hours was missing. I was at the second chapter a little before the bear. Wtf happened?! Why my savedata are missing?! Please help me! 

The only thing here is new game, with in red "launch a new party will erase your existing auto save! >n<

If nothing can be done, FUCK YOU Hinterland! How dare you making shit that delete the save datas ?!

[Pillock]

They changed the game so much that old saves are no longer compatible. The missions are different, the characters are different, the maps are different. I'd recommend playing it again from the beginning to get the most out of it because there are so many improvements. But you can start from the beginning of episode 2 if you got that far first time round. Episode 1 is worth another look, though. 

To be fair, they did give several months notice that Wintermute save games would be wiped when they released the updated version. 

[Guest kristaok]

18 hours ago, galkimera said:

Hello, after several month, I wanted to get back to "The Long Dark" on my PS4. I made the update and launched the game. After checking the changelog, I headed to the Wintermute menu, and saw with horror and wrath that my save of 50+ hours was missing. I was at the second chapter a little before the bear. Wtf happened?! Why my savedata are missing?! Please help me! 

The only thing here is new game, with in red "launch a new party will erase your existing auto save! >n<

If nothing can be done, FUCK YOU Hinterland! How dare you making shit that delete the save datas ?!

Your save data was deleted because it would definitely not have been compatible with the game, they basically reworked the whole story mode with the redux. The story mode is a lot better than it used to be, I know it sucks but everyone was warned way in advance about the data swipe. 

I recommend sucking it up and giving story mode another shot, trust me it’s a whole heck of a lot better now, and the world is less empty feeling. 

Also you should consider editing out your slur towards Hinterland, I mean what gaming company you know makes money from their game and instead of pocketing it all, they decide to totally revamp their game for the better? I don’t honestly know of any gaming company who has done this. In fact Hinterland didn’t even have to do the redux, they could have just continued on that path, but thankfully they did do the redux. So yea I give mass props to Hinterland, what they did with the whole redux showed me they truly do care about their fans. 

Lastly, I don’t know if you’ve ever played survival mode... yikes... but try surviving for quite a while only to die and have to restart all over. That happened to me, it hurt but that’s what Survival is all about. At least with the story mode you don’t have to worry about this except for that one time due to the redux, and compatibility issues. 

Hopefully you can come to the place where you forgive Hinterland, and give the new story mode a chance. The data swipe didn’t just affect you, it affected us all. I’m actually glad on many fronts that the redux happened, the story mode like I said is a lot better, and I find it easier in a good way and all around a much better experience than before the redux. 

[galkimera]

Bullshit. Okay, it's really cool they remade it to make it better, I understand. But fuck, not to the detriment of the players. They could have just created a new menu like "Wintermute REDUX" under the "Wintermute" one, and leaving untouched the first iteration of the game, to let players enjoy the 2 versions of it, to let the players of the first one keep enjoying the game they begin with, to let them enjoy their saves, their completion, the time they made on it, the story they experienced, they lived. But no. It's been nuked and fuck you, all you did in the game is shit, you have to do it again. I can't replay the game at the 2nd episode, I'm forced to replay it from the begining of the first episode. Okay, I've seen changes, but it's really alike the first one for now (I'm just arrived to Grey Mother, so I guess the changes will be more later but heck), and I'm fucking bored of doing it again. I didn't have the chance to discover the entirety of the original story. I enjoy new content of course, but it's the first time an update delete all I did on the game.

For Survival mode, okay, I 'm completely okay with it, it's the principe of it, and I tried it for 2 hours, before returning to the story mode, but no, for Wintermute, you're absolutely not supposed to lost your data like this! I have the feeling I had spent 50 hours for nothing! Why have I suffer those difficulties with the horrible wolves, why have I endured death by frost because I was totally lost, by did I die by falls?! For nothing, because all I did will never know the real end I attended to.

I'll replay the game, but it'll don't change how I feel toward Hinterland.

Their intent was maybe good and I sincerely think it was, but they did the worst choice they could to apply it.

Concerning the notice, like I said, I didn't played at the game for several month, and on PS4, I don't think they can prevent peoples of what will change to the game before the update. And I'd never imagine that consequence of save data lose.

Still, thanks for the answers, at least now I know what happened, but can't accept it yet.

[Pillock]

Yeah, I guess it was inevitable that this would happen to some people. Not everyone reads Hinterland's announcements and communications. Perhaps they could have done more to get the message out - put the in-game news feed feature in earlier, or something.

If you want to get through Episode 1 quick, you can do that now. I think there's only 3 compulsory missions to do for Grey Mother now, before you are allowed to move on. You can ignore all the side missions if you want to just make faster progress.

Episode 2 has much more changes and improvements, though. It's almost like a different game. Not sure why you weren't able to skip Ep1 - I'm pretty sure I had the option to do that.

Hope you enjoy the new version, anyway. Hope in the end it compensates for losing your old save, and you can maybe build up a new set of memorable struggles you've had to endure to replace the old ones. 

[geodesic]

What they could've done, with little effort:

- Tag saved games with the version number, so they can run a one-time upgrade script on first load.

- Define a handful of safe locations outdoors and reposition the player to the nearest one to accommodate map changes (which I only noticed in Milton tbh).

- Define a handful of main quest completion steps so that the player can be reset to an appropriate stage in the story without losing all progress.

- Transfer the inventory, and transfer the search state of containers that exist in both versions.

It wasn't inevitable that saves would have to be wiped, they just didn't deem it necessary to add the courtesy to the longtime players who have supported this game. That's Hinterland's choice. I guess they were too busy not fixing any of the plot holes.

[Blankshield]

It's unfair to claim they haven't fixed any of the plot holes when you haven't actually played the redux far enough (just arrived at Grey Mother) to see any significant story progression.

[Pillock]

On 1/7/2019 at 12:54 PM, geodesic said:

Define a handful of main quest completion steps so that the player can be reset to an appropriate stage in the story without losing all progress.

I don't see how that could work?

If they'd allowed you to continue from your mid-episode Predux position in the story (or close to it), but in the Redux version, you wouldn't know what was going on. Episode 2, especially, is completely different. Some of the characters and plot reveals appear in a different order. Having made such significant changes to the presentation of the story, it wouldn't make sense to the player unless they'd at least started Episode 2 from the beginning (which I'm pretty sure you can do anyway).

On 1/7/2019 at 12:54 PM, geodesic said:

I guess they were too busy not fixing any of the plot holes.

What are those plot holes?

[odizzido]

Are you forced to update games on the PS4?

[Admin]

We have been informing people that this was coming since the summer of last year. It's an unfortunate result of our extensive improvements to WINTERMUTE and while we understand that it is frustrating to lose your progress it was what we deemed the best step forward.

Future Episodes will continue from REDUX WINTERMUTE and not the pre-REDUX game. Making a bifurcated Story Mode in order to allow players to keep their save data would have created a great deal more development work as all future chapters would have to work with both REDUX and pre-REDUX save data when the events and story in the two versions are different. We did our best to encourage players to finish the two Episodes before the update.

We do believe that REDUX is a much-improved experience and suggest you play through that regardless.