With the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 earlier this month, the age-old debate of save-scumming has been fully ignited, with Starfield players already weighing in on their plans. While the act of save scumming, repeatedly reloading to ensure a preferable result, can be controversial, it seems that the Starfield community is leaning towards a failure is better type of playthrough.
A post by Reddit user u/sad_eggy asks, “Will you be save-scumming or leaning into trial and failure, and why?”.
The top-rated comment says, “First playthrough will probably just be trial and failure. No save scumming, test room, or console commands. I will attempt anyways lol”, suggesting that the general sentiment leans towards making mistakes and living with consequences. One reply goes into more detail. “First playthrough always 100% vanilla and if I chose a wrong answer or something then I have to live with it. The next playthroughs can be modded to death lol.”
Some users did point out the benefit of using saves to escape game-breaking situations, such as getting stuck between walls or other bugs. This also included adding mods to the game if things needed fixing quicker than Bethesda could patch them. “I will add a mod if there’s something horribly buggy (looking at you, Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch). But otherwise, I agree 100%. First playthrough should be completely vanilla.”
One comment on the post suggested that save scumming is the same as having extra lives or a checkpoint to revert to if something goes wrong, but one user provided a much deeper idea. “True… but if you get caught stealing — did something go ‘wrong’ to the point that you should reload a save — or should you simply deal with the consequence of prison or being attacked? I think it just depends on how pure you want to be in your play-through. I personally go back and forth all throughout.”
I am in the camp of enjoying failure and making the wrong choice. Still, if I feel cheated by something the game does or simply my misunderstanding of a mechanic, or dialogue choice, I will happily reload to get a second chance. What are your save-related plans for Strafield?
