How saving works in Dragon's Dogma 2

Dragon's Dogma 2's save system is perhaps best described as esoteric. As a game that prides itself on its opacity, it's not about to allow you to spam save, but you're not precisely locked in to your last savestate either. It's something that's likely to trip up the unwary newcomer at times, especially in the first few hours of the game, and I don't mind admitting it got me a few times.

Not to worry, though, we've done the hard work of trial-and-erroring the ins-and-outs of DD2's save system so you don't have to. Read on for Dragon's Dogma 2 saving explained.

How many Dragon's Dogma 2 save files can you have?

Dragon's Dogma 2 only allows you to have one save file at a time. This can come as a bit of a shock if you're used to RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 that essentially allow you to have as many save files as your system storage can handle, giving you plenty of opportunity to reload if you don't like an outcome, or even to run a few alt campaigns alongside one another.

Only allowing for one save file means that Dragon's Dogma 2 overwrites your existing save every time a manual or automatic save occurs. That means that typically speaking, you can't reload to a point more than a few minutes back in your gameplay — although there's an exception that allows you to reload from your last rest at an inn (see below).

Does Dragon's Dogma 2 autosave?

Dragon's Dogma 2 autosaves frequently, which is indicated by a red circle spinning in the upper right-hand corner of the screen for a few seconds. Autosaves typically occur every few minutes during ordinary exploration, or at the start and end of major combat encounters or story beats.

You can also manually save whenever you like by going into the menu and choosing Systems, which allows you to save and continue, save and quit to the main menu, or return to the main menu without saving.

Reload from last save vs Reload from last inn

When resuming the game from the main menu, you'll be given two options: "Reload from last save" or "Reload from last inn".

Reload from last save is fairly straightforward, although it's worth noting that this doesn't differentiate between manual and autosaves, so unless you quit right after your last manual save, it's likely to drop you wherever you left off. This can include at the start of a boss fight, or even at a point where the procgen decides to spawn a bunch of enemies who are about to attack what you thought was a safe spot to leave off; so when selecting this option, it's worth going in assuming you're about to be attacked immediately unless you're very sure you were in a safe area.

Reload from last inn does exactly what it says in allowing you to resume your game from the last time your party rested at an inn. Selecting this from the main menu will result in a pop-up warning that you stand to lose progress when choosing this option, since the odds are good that the game has autosaved since then, and it will also roll back any progress that you've manually saved since your last hotel stay.

There are a couple of reasons you might still choose to do this, though. For example, if you die, you're able to reload to the start of the combat encounter that killed you, but with a pretty restrictive cap added to your Arisen's max health until their next inn rest. There's usually a way forward nevertheless, but if you're unable to either succeed in battle on your subsequent try or outrun your attackers, you might want to go back to the last inn and try a whole different approach in terms of equipment, party set-up, or even attempting a few other quests to level up first.

A warning though: choosing "reload from last inn" does exactly what it says on the tin, meaning that making camp doesn't count, even though camping otherwise yields similar benefits to resting at an inn in terms of health restoration, skill management, allowing time to pass, etc. Not paying attention to that bit of wording is a good way to unintentionally lose an hour's progress (as I learned the hard way).

Want to know more about the semi-hidden systems of Dragon's Dogma 2? Check out our guide to why seemingly aesthetic choices in character creator actually matter to your stats.