As if Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t have enough issues with bugs and performance, it also now appears that you can corrupt your save file by simply playing the game for too long. Users on the official forumsas well as the subreddit have reported issues with save files over 8mb becoming corrupted and not loading. The game’s users are understandably miffed, and the official forum’s moderator response that “[CDPR games] are not meant to be played on and on like Dark Souls, GTA, or an MMO” is a poor excuse for what seems to be a failure of the game’s programming.
While the issue frequently stems from overzealous crafting, it also appears that anyone trying to complete all the game’s content on a single save will have to concern themselves with the 8mb cap. We did some testing, and this is what we found:
Crafting 100 Mk 1 Bouncebacks caused our save file to increase by 9 kb
Looting 100 random items from enemies and vending machines increased the save file’s size by 3 kb
Playing for 10 minutes and progressing the main quest by two scenes/encounters increased the save file’s size by 44 kb, or 4.4kb a minute
To put those numbers in perspective, you would have to craft about 90,000 items, or loot 250,000 items, to make your save file 8MB. However, those numbers don’t include any increases to save file size caused by just playing the game normally and progressing the story. If the file size increase from our 10 minutes of playing the main quest was constant, the game would only have 30hrs of gameplay before reaching 8mb. Again there is a caveat — obviously the game can handle more than 30 hours of play on the main quest, and that rate of file size increase is not constant. That being said, the numbers are still concerning. It is also worth noting that a brand new save is about 1MB.
Hopefully the devs at CDPR are hard at work on a fix (and are looking at their monitors while doing so)
If you want to see how large your save file is, here where your Cyberpunk 2077 save game files are located on each platform:
PC – userprofile\Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077
PlayStation 4 – Settings > Application Saved Data Management > SAVED DATA IN SYSTEM STORAGE > Cyberpunk 2077
PlayStation 5 – Settings > STORAGE > [Storage device] >Saved Data > PS4 Games / PS5 Games > Cyberpunk 2077
Xbox One – My Games and Apps > Cyberpunk 2077 > Menu > Manage Game > SAVED DATA
Xbox Series X|S – My Games and Apps > Cyberpunk 2077 > Menu > Manage Game and add-ons > SAVED DATA
Cyberpunk 2077 – Saved data is damaged and cannot be loaded.
Unfortunately the save is damaged and can’t be recovered. Please use an older save file to continue playing and try to keep a lower amount of items and crafting materials. If you have used the item duplication glitch, please load a save file not affected by it. The save file size limit might be increased in one of the future patches, but the corrupted files will remain that way.
Basically, they might fix it, but they might not, so be careful. We suggest making manual saves frequently, and to keep an eye on your file size if it begins to approach 8mb. We also suggest you don’t craft anything you don’t need, as sad as that is for those of you trying to roleplay as an item shop. Let us know in the comments if you’ve experienced any issues, or to share what your save files are looking like!
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
