It's not that bad, actually. If you have to replay the last 15 minutes, you haven't really made any significant progress during that time. The game autosaves whenever you solve a puzzle or reach a hidden checkpoint. It saves when you re-read certain letters and, more reliably, when you ride the elevator on the cliff. The puzzles don't take much time, and the game world, while appearing to be very large, actually has little content and can be run through in several minutes. The latest patch made it more obvious when the game is saved.

In my case, the game doesn't save progress at all. During my first run I:
- got all the traps and read the note at the campfire
- solved the train murder
- solved the door riddle
- got to the witch's tent

At this point, I had to leave, so I quit the game, thinking that surely the game must have saved my progress - if not at the tent, then at least at the end of the door riddle. When I started playing the game again, I was indeed near the tent. I went on and solved the graveyard murder, went back for the astronaut part and got all the way back to the train murder victim, only to realize that it was unsolved - I'd have to repeat the entire investigation from scratch! I imagine I'd have to do the same with traps and doors since they were reset as well... Sorry guys, I love the game but I'm just not that patient. I'll come back to it once the save system is fixed.

PS. I'm playing with patch 3 already installed.

I have to say the sporadic save system in this game kind of kills the mood for me.

The last time I played it, I found traps, I think I solved the train puzzle and stepped into an area with buldings. Now I am about to continue and discover I am at the very beginning again. The mystery game changed into speedrun for me at the moment because I am already familiar with these parts and will want to get to the point where I ended as soon as I can.

There isn't even "Saving..." indicator that would let me know I can calm down and this isn't the type of game I want to finish in one sitting :(.

EDIT: It wasn't so bad after all. I just bumped into stories during my previous session but never given them any closure leading to save point because I thought visions were a hint system. It is possible to reach each save point within 20 minutes.

Has any of this changed in the meantime? Did anyone ever hear a comment from the developers on this isseu?

I tried out the game yesterday for the first time and I find that in combination with the free exploration and lack of handholding the save system causes much confusion. I actually played long enough to reach a checkpoint and get the game to save, but what are checkpoints in this game? Is there linear progression at all? When I reloaded the savegame today, all the things I had inspected before reaching the checkpoint were reset again. Does that I mean I already solved everything there was to solve or does it mean I have to do everything again? Does the game only save your current position and important achievements, while resetting all puzzles you haven't completed yet? It didn't feel like I solved the first murder yet.

It looks like an interesting story-telling game, but the constant stuttering and the awkwardly inappropriate save game system are real turn-offs and kind of make me regret the purchase already. :/

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That's absurd. No.

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Hi everyone,

We released an official statement regarding the way the save system works. Here it is:

"Saving the state of the pseudo-open world in Unreal Engine 3 (the engine used for the game) is quite difficult. It is not a wide-spread knowledge, though, as most UE3 games have always been about linear progress and checkpoints (which are fairly easy to do) rather than “save anywhere, anytime” (which saving open worlds amount to, even if through checkpoints).

To be absolutely clear, it is not impossible to make “proper” saves, of course. It is just difficult. In our case it was the following calculation: do we spend several additional months - yes, it was that much work – on this one feature for a game that a lot of people finish in one, two takes anyway (the average completion time is 4.5 hours), or do we make a basic save system that only saves finished “puzzles”?

Considering that even if you have to repeat a part of a puzzle, it is very fast once you know what you are doing, we went for the first option. It was not an easy choice as we knew that the system will disappoint some gamers (although we did not anticipate it will also be confusing for them as well), but game development is always about such hard choices, especially for a small independent studio on a quite limited budget like us.

With the way UE4 manages game assets it is now easier for us to make a fully-fledged save system. We are still debating the details, but there is no doubt it is going to be clear improvement and somethings that is no longer confusing. We will be releasing that UE4 re-make (along with the better graphics and some other improvements) for free for the current owners of the game in just a few months.

If you plan to finish The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in one-two-three takes, and if you know how the save system works (it saves a finished quest/puzzle, it is pretty clear when that happens, and that particular puzzle stays solved after loading the savegame), we honestly do not think you need to wait for the UE4 version. A few people who were righteously angry with us for the UE3 version save system enjoyed the game a lot after they understood how the saves work.

UE4 does have some smaller extra improvements, but it is the save system that is the biggest one. If it is really important to you (e.g. you like to play in 15-20 minutes sessions), please wait until that version is released. We are already in beta, so it is not that far away."

We hope that clears out the situation for some people. :)

Adrian Palma,
Support Manager,
The Astronauts

Thanks for the valuable info :-) And re-release in UE4 as an update is an awesome idea, thank you Astronauts! :-)

You are very welcome! If you have any other problems or questions, do not hesitate to ask us. :)

Adrian Palma,
Support Manager,
The Astronauts

I just installed The Vanishing of Ethan Carter tonight and quit due to the save system. I believe a manual save system should have been used. I had heard the game had a poor save system and should have listened to the news I was hearing. If this is the kind of save system that The Astronauts plan on using for future games then this will be the last game I purchase made by them. If this is an issue with UE3 then they really should have chosen another engine. Manual save systems have been around since at least Doom in 1993.

It's a shame really as I was really enjoying the game itself aside from the save system. I had gotten past the first murder recreation and gotten to the first letter and still hadn't hit a save point. This is unacceptable.

I had read that statement but missed the part about the save system being improved. My apologies. I'm happy to hear that. I can put it on the back burner until then.

On an unrelated note with the switch to UE4 is there any plans on a Linux version ?

We are looking into porting the UE4 version of the game to Mac and Linux but at the moment we are focused on the PS4 release and on finishing the PC version of the game running in UE4. We will let the community know once we decide about Mac and Linux release.

Adrian Palma,
Support Manager,
The Astronauts