Fans have waited a long time for Samus Aran to return to her classic alien-hunting ways for years. With the launch of Metroid Dread, she’s back. The new Switch title has a lot of new and old mechanics. Being a 2.5D Metroidvania title, there’s some challenge to be expected. With polished and modern visuals, players get to see Samus in action in a whole new way. The classic gameplay style is 2D as ever, so it takes some getting used to.
There are a few things for new players to get used to as well. Players who didn’t grow up with these games might not be used to their difficulty. This is one of those franchises that wears its classic influences openly, and that means game design has some aged elements to it. Players seem to be confused about a few things, one of them being how to save your game in Metroid Dread. Here’s what you need to know.
Saving Your Game in Metroid Dread
There is no save option through the menu in-game, you must use another method. There are manual saves, but they’re only present at set points in the game. The Metroidvania genre has always done things like this, as save-scumming is too easy to pull off otherwise. The developers of these games want things to be dangerous, so checkpoints are put in, encouraging players to play better.
When you want to save your game in Metroid Dread, you need to do certain things. To do this, you need to find a save point. These come in two forms. The first one is invisible to the player. There are set checkpoints that you can return to if you die. These do not technically save, but will be the last room you entered before you died. provided it was a new area.
The second way to preserve your progress is through actual save rooms. These are set in each level at specific points, and you must manually visit them to save your game. When you find the glowing yellow rings and interact with them, you will be asked to save. This is the way to save your game in Metroid Dread.
Network Station in action.
These rooms are called Network Stations, and in-universe they’re how Samus uploads data about her task. In gameplay terms, they’re your lifeline. Once you save at a Network Station, you will unlock it for future use. To be able to spot them, you need to unlock the map. Once you unlock the full map, Save Stations will appear as yellow rooms. They will also be marked on the map as a Network or Save Station.
