Some video game tropes are designed to fully immerse the player in the experience, and that is exactly the case with the Justified Save Point trope.
Realism and immersion are two terms often associated with the modern gaming era. With the monumental leaps in technology between the early console generations, immersion and realism quickly became the primary goal for many games throughout the 7th generation of consoles. Many games attempted to add realism to their experience through grounded lighting effects, weighty combat mechanics, and realistic audio, and while this resulted in some fairly similar-looking titles for a while, that element of realism has remained to this day, and it’s the gaming trope of the justified save point has remained.
The “Save Point Justified” trope isn’t unique to a specific gaming genre, it’s used in a variety of ways across the industry. But while its implementation can vary widely across the industry, its purpose is always the same to immerse the player in the game’s world, even if they save the game and log out.
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The justified save point gaming trope explained
Any medium, whether it’s a book, film, television show, play, or video game, requires audiences to surrender their disbelief and accept that what they are seeing cannot be a 100% realistic representation. However, the video game industry uses a variety of different techniques to keep their games as realistic as possible. One such technique is the Justified Savepoint trope.
While the act of saving is inherently a pretty big break with reality, many modern games try to justify it by providing some important elements of context. Instead of old save methods where the player simply clicks a menu icon or encounters a save point in the overworld, these games use a real-world activity to explain the act of saving. Whether it’s reflecting on their adventure while staring into a mirror or taking some time out to meditate, it’s not just a simple save button.
The best examples of the justified save point trope in gaming
One of the simplest and oldest examples of the “Justified save point” trope in games can be found throughout the resident Evil Franchise. Starting with the very first game in the franchise, resident Evil will often trick players into saving their progress using one of the typewriters scattered around the game’s world. These typewriters are usually found in fairly realistic locations like an office or study, and in previous entries in the franchise, players even had to use ribbons to save their progress.
The Grand Theft Auto Franchise also has a fairly simple example of the Justified Save Point trope. start with Grand Theft Auto 3, players would save their progress by visiting their apartment. After saving, the player character would go in, and when the player returned, the character would leave their apartment six hours later in the game, presumably after sleeping for a bit.
The animal crossing series has a very similar version of this trope, with some iterations, such as Animal Crossing: Wild World, which requires the player to save their progress by returning to their house and going to bed. If the player hasn’t logged in for more than a week, the player character’s hair will look disheveled, as if they’ve been in bed the whole time.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has one of the more unique take on the “Save Point Justified” trope. The whole game is designed as if the prince is telling the player a story, and when the player saves at certain locations, the prince remarks “I’ll start the story here next time”, further feeding into this unique narrative framework .