How do people design the save game feature in large/complex games?

Question

The save game feature seems simple but it’s mind-blowing how it can return the exact state of a game with all elements/events organised in the correct order. Can anyone explain how it works?

In: 668

Answer 1

A simplified version. When you are playing, the computer has data called “state” loaded into memory which captures where you are, what’s in your bag, what has happened in your environment, etc.

All they have to do then, is move the state data from memory to disk, and when you restore they load it back into memory.