Are savepoints obsolete?

I've noticed that in retro games you could only save the game when reaching a savepoint, and game designers used savepoints as a tool for improving challenge, in that the gamer is aware that if he dies he must repeat a part of the level and so he's motivated to play as well as he can.

Starting from the first Xbox generation this trend has been surpassed somehow, now many games save the state automatically and very often so that you don't need to repeat anything you've already played.
Modern designers boycott savepoints.

But why are they considered a bad thing now? Maybe the design choice of making you repeat things is considered a "cheap" trick to improve challenge without putting effort in the design, or in other words is considered "lazy" design just to make the game last more ?

 

They are most certainly not gone. I didn't play FF XV, but XIII had save points.

Additionally Nier Automata, which came out a few months ago, had them as well.

As for why they are or aren't good, they basically handcuff the player to the game for a stretch of time until you get to a save point. I can't just play until I'm done. I have to play until I find a save point, and then stop there.

Just like something like unskippable cutscenes (or games that don't pause like Dark Souls), I'm forced to pattern my gaming time around the game design, rather than the game design accommodating my gaming time.

There are definitely benefits. But there are definitely drawbacks as well.

 

Lots of games have save points. Really just depends on the individual game as to which system suits best.

 

I would argue that modern autosaves and checkpoints are just the natural progression of the save point. The original save point wasn't in the game because designers wanted to limit your ability to save the game. It was in the game because the technology of the day meant that you could only dedicate so much space and CPU cycles to processing a save.

 

Horizon Zero Dawn and Dark Souls both use save points.

Personally I like them. Gives the challenge meaning and eliminates creep-n-save.

But I think they lost a lot of fashion around 8 years ago when every reviewer bashed any game without a save anywhere feature.

 

Old game are super hard, but also super short. You can finish them in two hours for most of teh time, when I replay them with the skill accumulate over the years, I'm always astonish by how short they really are. Challenge use to be the key focus of game, now it has move to scenery exploration, set pieces, story cutscene, interactions in general (with skill tree and other character progression), they kind of became obsolete in most game, downright counter productive, You just have much more to lose at once, and retreading old challenges is not fun in constant engagement game design, challenge are design around throw away unique situation rather than pure immediate adaptation skills like old game, which is also because new tv + realistic animation blending introduce more lag and reward more planning base execution, those modern takedown aren't pure skill anymore.

 

Heck no.

Sometimes save points, can help gamers in other ways too.

Like in games, especially adventure games, people get so drawn into the game
they're playing, after playing for so many hours, that they sometimes forget to save.

So when they unexpectedly reach a check/save point, and some fancy words
magically appear on the screen saying, eg. "Checkpoint/savepoint reached," its
like a reminder to them, to save their game.
Even though, the game automatically saved their progress for them.
Then, they immediately remember, that for the past few hours etc. they forgot to save their hours of progress. So then they manually go to the save options menu and save their game progress.

 

Like others mentioned here, I think save points were used because of the technology limitations at the time. I do feel very strongly, however, that they have some design strengths as a tool.

At the top of my list is that they let the player know that progress has been made. Save points are a clear marker of finishing a particular area or task and let the player feel the achievement.

When used correctly they also add suspense. Generally placed before bosses or big story pieces.

Chrono Trigger is the best example I can think of for good save point mechanics.

 

No I dont think so nothing worse then havign to replay the whole gameplay segment over again, but this allows the designer to put together a discreet challenge for the player