Saving the Game

     You can save your progress in several ways: manual, quick, and automatic saves.

• Automatic Saves – These occur at key moments, like when moving between locations, starting a cutscene, or just before important story events. They’re handy if you forget to save or want to experiment with different quest outcomes. Automatic saves happen in the background, without needing to pause the game, and are stored in dedicated auto-save slots.
• Manual Saves – These let you save your game at any chosen point, ideal for returning to a specific moment, especially before risky encounters or critical choices. Sometimes manual saving may not be possible, and a prompt will notify you. There are two manual save options: regular saves and quicksaves. Quicksaves overwrite a single slot, while regular saves can be stored in multiple slots, allowing you to return to various points in the game.
  • To make a quick save, press F5 on the keyboard. To load the latest quick save, press F8.
  • On a gamepad, press Y in the pause menu to quick save.
  • For a regular save, open the pause menu, select Save Game, and choose a slot.

     Save Slot Limits: You have 3 campaign slots, each with capacity for 31 manual saves, 10 auto-saves, 3 quicksaves, and 6 mission-specific auto-saves. When slots are full, a prompt will notify you.

     If you encounter an issue saving, you may need more disk space. A message will inform you if this is the case. Free up space by deleting unneeded saves.

Where to Find Save Files

• Steam

How to Locate and Copy Save Files

1. Press Win + R on your keyboard (Win is the key with the Windows logo).

2. Type %LocalAppData% in the dialog window and press OK.

3. Navigate to the folder Stalker2\Saved\STEAM.

4. Copy the SaveGames folder and store it in a safe location.

- Path to the save files:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\STEAM\

How to Replace Save Files

1. Open your Steam library.

2. Right-click on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl in the library and select Properties.

3. In the General tab, disable the Steam Cloud synchronization option.

4. Create a backup of the SaveGames folder located at:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\STEAM\.

5. Delete the old SaveGames folder.

6. Copy the new SaveGames folder to the same directory.

•  Epic Games Store

How to Locate and Copy Save Files

1. Press Win + R.

2. Type %LocalAppData% in the dialog window and press OK.

3. Navigate to the folder Stalker2\Saved\EOS.

4. Copy the SaveGames folder and save it.

- Path to the save files:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\EOS\

How to Replace Save Files

1. Open the Epic Games Store library.

2. Right-click on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and select Manage.

3. Disable the Cloud Saves option.

4. Create a backup of the SaveGames folder located at:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\EOS\.

5. Delete the old SaveGames folder.

6. Copy the new SaveGames folder to the same directory.

•  GOG

How to Locate and Copy Save Files

1. Press Win + R.

2. Type %LocalAppData% in the dialog window and press OK.

3. Navigate to the folder Stalker2\Saved\GOG.

4. Copy the SaveGames folder and save it.

- Path to the save files:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\GOG\

How to Replace Save Files

1. Open the GOG library.

2. Right-click on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, select Manage Installation → Configure.

3. In the Features tab, disable Cloud Saves.

4. Create a backup of the SaveGames folder located at:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\GOG\.

5. Delete the old SaveGames folder.

6. Copy the new SaveGames folder to the same directory.

• Microsoft Store/Xbox App

How to Locate and Copy Save Files

1. Press Win + R.

2. Type %LocalAppData% in the dialog window and press OK.

3. Navigate to the folder Packages\GSCGameWorld.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2HeartofChernobyl\SystemAppData\xgs\Hash_Folder.

- Note: "Hash_Folder" is a unique folder with a name consisting of letters and numbers, different for each user.

4. Copy the SaveGames folder and save it.

- Path to the save files:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Packages\GSCGameWorld.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2HeartofChernobyl\SystemAppData\xgs\Hash_Folder\

How to Replace Save Files

1. Create a backup of the SaveGames folder located at:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Packages\GSCGameWorld.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2HeartofChernobyl\SystemAppData\xgs\Hash_Folder\.

2. Launch S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

3. Wait until the game reaches the main menu and keep it open.

4. Navigate back to the folder:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Packages\GSCGameWorld.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2HeartofChernobyl\SystemAppData\xgs\Hash_Folder\.

5. Delete the old SaveGames folder.

6. Copy the new SaveGames folder to the same directory.

7. Close the game.

8. Wait for cloud synchronization to complete.

9. Relaunch the game.

     These are the basic instructions for locating, copying, and replacing save files for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on various platforms. Follow them to avoid losing progress and ensure a stable game performance. If you encounter difficulties, we recommend creating backups and ensuring cloud synchronization is disabled before making changes.