Microsoft's Minecraft Dungeons lacking cross-save is ridiculous

Microsoft recently released its anticipated Minecraft Dungeons, a "causal dungeon crawler," beyond Xbox One, Windows 10, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation iv. Our review praised information technology, and the community consensus says it'southward a solid game, with many years of potential alee of it.

As someone who never really got into the original Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons is a breath of fresh air. Information technology is a more classic arcade game that falls back to traditional elements with levels, goals, a story, and even some boodle-grinding for those rare items. The TL;DR is I beloved information technology. The graphics are gorgeous, the gameplay challenging, the story…well, there is one.

But I find Microsoft's decision non to include cross-save (non to be confused with cantankerous-play) completely stupid. It is a poor gaming experience in 2022, and the company is leaving coin on the table. Here'south why.

The event: Let me play anwhere, for real

Microsoft has already noted that the ability to play across devices e.g., Xbox 1 players vs. Nintendo Switch ones, is a characteristic coming in a afterward update. I could lament that it is non here on day ane, only with the current pandemic, and the fact nosotros know it will exist here in a time to come update makes it seems little and moot.

When information technology comes to cross-saves, two versions are relevant:

Save on one platform, option up on another e.g., PC to PlayStation 4.
Save on one platform, pick upwards on the same eastward.g., PC to PC.

Minecraft Dungeons, inexplicably, has neither cantankerous-salve option.

The thought hither is obvious: you'll desire to save your game progress and your graphic symbol's drove of boodle. Playing for hours on Xbox I but to first entirely over on PC – especially when you become both through GamePass Ultimate – is ridiculous.

Ideally, a cross-platform game would take both cantankerous-save methods as options for players. Beingness able to play on Xbox One and pick upwardly your save with a Nintendo Switch would be one heck of an experience for Minecraft Dungeons. Much similar the Destiny serial, at that place tends to be a lot of grinding to find rare artifacts, weapons, and "best" items that would benefit from such an ability.

The second one seems more pedestrian but besides obvious. If you play on your desktop PC, switching over to your laptop PC should let you continue the same game. After all, there are no compatibility and platform bug and restrictions to blocking such a feature, so why not? It all goes through the Microsoft Store.

To brand matters worse, as mentioned in the comments, there is no local cloud-relieve either. That means if you uninstall Minecraft Dungeons from your PC, skilful-goodbye all progress. I hateful, actually.

Only what makes such news awful is there is no indication it is ever coming either. That is perplexing. Microsoft owns Azure and readily has bachelor quite a flake of cloud resources to enable either option. If at that place is any visitor that could make such a feature happen, it is Microsoft.

At launch, yous´ll be able to play online multiplayer with players on the same platform. Our goal is to permit anybody play together regardless of platform, and we're looking forwards to enabling cross-platform play in a time to come free game update. Salve files and game progress exercise not transfer across platforms. – Minecraft Dungeons FAQ

Were Microsoft to come out and say they could non get cantankerous-save out on launch, but information technology's coming after, that'due south fine. No sweat. But that is not happening here.

Multiple buys: Coin on the table

What makes this whole Minecraft Dungeons thing weirder is it's a fiscal issue as well. Forget the dream of buying a game license on one platform to play everywhere; I'd be willing to throw some extra greenbacks to buy a Nintendo Switch edition of Minecraft Dungeons if I knew I could play information technology across my devices. I'thou sure I'm non lonely on that either.

There are undoubtedly technical issues in making cross-saves happen, especially beyond different platforms. But when a visitor builds a game from the ground up in this modernistic age and has the resources of Microsoft at its disposal, it is entirely absurd not to have this ability.

Indeed, there are some clever workarounds for cantankerous-saving – at least on PC to PC. Someone on Reddit recently posted a how-to that uses Dropbox to sync the game'southward progress and character between Windows devices. It's technical, convoluted, and tricky, particularly if you lot want to use some other cloud server. Simply it works.

Microsoft missed an opportunity here with Minecraft Dungeons. It's a casual, fun romp of a game that already has a long route of DLC expansion packs ahead of it. The idea that kids to adults want to bound from panel to PC to the Switch is non rocket science; it'due south how we consume games and media. Hopefully, someone at Redmond will pick up on that and figures this nonsense out.

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