Watch Dogs: Legion corrupted save fix may be several days away, Ubisoft says

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Watch Dogs: Legion players are reporting a pretty big problem with the game's save system in the Watch Dogs subreddit and Ubisoft forum: When players don't properly exit the game, save data is being erased. Because there's only one save slot, and no option to manually save, hours of progress—sometimes entire campaigns—are being lost. Ubisoft says it's aware of the problem and that a fix is in the works, but it may not be out until early next week.

"We’re aware some players are having difficulties and we’re looking to address these issues in an upcoming patch by November 9," a Ubisoft rep said in an email. "We’ll have more information on the contents of the patch in the coming days."

One of the core issues, broken down in detail in this Ubisoft forum post, is that saving on exit sometimes takes so long that that the game appears to hang, leading some players to use alt-F4 to force it to close, leading to save corruption. The duration appears to vary—some users say the save process wraps up in five minutes or so, but redditor smoothjazz666 said they attempted to return to the main menu, then took their dog for a walk, came back, and it was still stuck—but waiting it out may save you some headaches.

Redditor Natanaeltedja shared a more comprehensive workaround: Disable the cloud service and start Ubisoft Connect in offline mode, and set the Watch Dogs: Legion app affinity to a single core: When the game is running, open the Windows task bar, select the "Details" tab, then right-click on Legion and choose the "set affinity" option. Select a single core (other than CPU 0), then return to the game and quit out to the main menu—after a brief pause, it should quit normally.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.