How to save in Clair Obscur Expedition 33

Without a map to help guide your way, you may find yourself lost or sticking to the obvious path to progress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Spending hours exploring a region and defeating every enemy in sight is great for levelling up your party, but how do you save your progress to ensure you’re back where you left Expedition 33 the next time you launch Clair Obscur?

Here is everything you need to know about saving in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Can you save in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?

There is no manual save system in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Instead, to load any save file, you are limited to the last three auto-saves. Clair Obscur auto-saves after every battle, when you load into the next area, or by interacting with and exiting from a Expedition Flag. You don’t have to rest at these Rest Points, nor enter Camp to force a save. By interacting with anything that isn’t part of the game’s exploration, you will save your current progress when you exit from said screen or load into another.

Any new save overwrites the third slot of your previous save files, meaning you don’t want to rely too heavily on resting, upgrading, or moving on from exploring one of the worlds, as you will overwrite your past progress too quickly. However, backtracking to explore each world in its entirety is perfectly feasible, as you can revisit areas on the World Map, which grants access to new regions via Esquie, or revisit the old ones.

Each region doesn’t have a map, so you’ll likely miss out on items or journal entries. Remember that resting at the flags respawns nearby enemies, just like Dark Souls and Elden Ring.

You shouldn’t exit the game by returning to the launcher either. You can access the main menu, which displays your previous saves and the Return to Title Screen exit button, along with an options menu. This is separate from your party menu.

Clair Obscur behaves much like Dark Souls, where your progress is saved based on loading into a new arena or resting at a Bonfire. Expedition 33 even makes a point to say that any unsaved data won’t be restored when you exit the game back to the launcher. Although manual saving isn’t possible, the game will save frequently, ensuring you always have a backup on hand if your final stand against an enemy or boss doesn’t go your way.