One save slot, campfires only, and a mode you cannot change

✚ Checked 2026-11-15 · PS5 1.005.000 / PS4 launch build · 3 sources

The two rules, before anything else

One save slot. Manual saves happen at campfires and nowhere else. If you quit without saving at a campfire, you lose everything since your last save.

That is not a throwback detail — it is the mechanic that most changes how you play, in a game that otherwise behaves like a modern action title.

The mode lock

Starting a new game means picking a save slot, and picking a mode at the same time. Your options are the standard run, Hermes Mode (speedrun) and Erebus Mode (one hit kills both ways).

Once selected, the mode chosen for that save file cannot be changed.

There is also no New Game Plus, which removes the other route people expect for "play it again, harder, keeping my stuff". A new mode means a new run, from the beginning.

Why this design exists

It is coherent rather than hostile. A speedrun timer that could be enabled mid-file would be meaningless, because the file's history would be part of the time. Likewise a one-hit mode that let you drop back to normal difficulty at a boss would not be a one-hit mode.

So the lock is the feature. The cost is that the choice has to be made with more information than a first-time player has. Which is why:

• First playthrough: standard. You are learning the map, and Erebus punishes learning.
• Already finished it once, or picking up the PS4 version: Hermes is fine from the start, because you already know the route.
• Erebus only when you have finished the game. It is a re-read of a map you know, not a first pass through one.

Campfire discipline in practice

The single-slot rule turns saving into a routine, and the routine is simple:

1. Save on arrival in a region. Not on the way out.
2. Save before an unfamiliar room. Especially one with a boss silhouette or a new enemy type.
3. Save after buying anything. An upgrade is progress; losing it means paying twice.
4. Save before attempting a risky collectible. A death is then a reload, not a loss.
5. Save twice around a long session boundary. If you are about to stop, save, then quit through the menu.

What the save system costs you

Concretely, three risks:

The third is the only one that cannot be recovered in-session. The others cost time.

Does anything carry across?

Nothing is missable, and free-roam after the credits reaches every region — so a completed standard file keeps all its progress and can be cleaned up indefinitely. What does not carry across:

• Collectibles into a new mode's file
• Orbs, upgrades or attachments into a new file
• Trophies earned on a different file into a new one (trophies are account-level, but the file still has to earn its own progress)

That last distinction matters for the PS4 version: whether trophies autopop or saves transfer between the PS4 and PS5 versions is a separate question, and it is not published. The upgrade-path page covers what is and is not on the record.

A five-second habit

Every campfire, without exception:

• Open the campfire
• Save
• Then do whatever you came for (enhance, rest, travel)

If you reverse that order, the thing you came for is unsaved when you leave.

What this page is not

It is not a warning that the game is fragile. In a 20-hour platinum with zero missable trophies and zero glitched trophies on current patches, the save system is the only real downside risk — and it is entirely a habit problem, not a design trap.