Checkpoints, reloads and what a rewind costs
Progress saves automatically, and most puzzles write a checkpoint once finished and you enter the next room. Lost one? The host opens the main menu, chooses change, starts a new journey and reselects the last checkpoint - greyed-out checkpoints mean the wrong player is hosting.
Progress in We Were Here Tomorrow is saved automatically, and a checkpoint is written when a puzzle is finished and the pair walks into the next room. There is no save-slot screen to manage — but there is a manual checkpoint reselect, and it is the tool that rescues a lost or softlocked session: the host opens the main menu, chooses change, starts a new journey and picks the last checkpoint. If the checkpoints are greyed out, the wrong person is hosting.
That is the developer's own wording, not ours, and the rest of this page is what it means in practice: when the game actually saves, what a rewind costs in each chapter, and which failures are repaired by a reload rather than by a restart.
Official screenshot, Total Mayhem Games.
Pairs with: Walkthrough hub · Puzzle mechanics · Patch 1.1.2 notes
The four sentences that answer it
| You want to know | Answer |
|---|---|
| Does the game save on its own? | Yes. Progress is automatically saved; most puzzles checkpoint once the whole puzzle is done and you enter the next room |
| Can I save whenever I like? | No. There is no manual save, but there is a manual checkpoint reselect from the main menu |
| Who does the reselect? | The host. If the checkpoint list will not respond, the host is the wrong one — swap hosts and try again |
| Is reloading risky? | No. It is the official recovery route, quoted at the top of the studio's known-issues page |
How to reselect a checkpoint
The path is short and the studio publishes it verbatim, because losing an evening to a checkpoint is more common than any puzzle. The host does it:
- Return to the main menu.
- Under your journey, select change.
- Choose Start New Journey.
- Select the last checkpoint you both recognise.
Two rules sit behind those four steps, and both explain most reports of "the list is broken":
- The host must be the one doing it. If the checkpoints are unclickable, the studio's own answer is that the wrong player is hosting — swap hosts and repeat the list.
- Both players then load that checkpoint. It is a reselect, not a fork: you resume the same run, with every achievement you have already unlocked intact.
What actually loses progress
The developer names two causes, and neither of them is a puzzle: closing the game incorrectly, or losing power or internet while you were in the middle of a puzzle. Everything else that looks like lost progress is usually one of these:
| What you saw | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You finished a puzzle and the next room still shows the old state | the checkpoint is written on entering the next room, not on the last interaction of the puzzle | walk through the door before assuming anything saved |
| Both of you black-screened while loading a checkpoint | the pre-1.1.2 checkpoint load bug | update to 1.1.2, then reselect the checkpoint |
| One of you is in a room the other has not reached | the pair desynchronised, the save did not | both reselect the same checkpoint and re-enter together |
| The checkpoint list is greyed out | the non-hosting player is trying to use it | swap hosts |
| An item or the empty-hand icon vanished from your inventory | a known inventory display bug | reload the checkpoint — the studio's listed workaround |
Checkpoints are not the achievement list
This is where most guides go wrong, ours included until we checked the support pages. The game has 37 achievements and they double as a progression spine — sector pages here use them as milestones — but the checkpoint count is not the achievement count. The two overlap without being the same list, and the studio names checkpoints by room function rather than by trophy: the known-issues page refers to a "Routing Power" checkpoint that appears nowhere in the achievement list.
Practical consequence: an achievement firing proves you passed a milestone, not that the game wrote a checkpoint. If you have to leave, finish the room and walk into the next one before you close the game. That single habit prevents almost every progress complaint in the game.
What a rewind costs, chapter by chapter
Reloads land on a completed puzzle, so the cost of a rewind is the room you were in plus anything you had done since the checkpoint. Our own run times, so you can see why a rewind beats a restart:
| Chapter | Full run | Reselect lands you at | What you repeat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norček Facility | 1.5–2 h | the last completed puzzle, often before the access card or the prototype | one physical task: print the card, or fetch the prototype |
| Cargo Elevator | 2–2.5 h | before the elevator, the terminus or the magnets | the sub-system you were mid-way through, in sequence |
| Gravitonics | 1–1.5 h | before the gate, the staircases or the accelerator | one room of role-swapping |
| R&D Headquarters | 2.5–3 h | before the second floor, the power restore or the upgrade | the server room; 1.1.2 added respawn points inside the two elevators that lead to it |
| Temporal Research Centre | 3–3.5 h | before the arrival, the power restore, the site or the bulb | the longest rewind in the game, especially in the final pot sequence |
| Beyond the Rift | 2–2.5 h, shared with the finale | before the crossing or the first contact | the stretch of test rooms between them |
| Rift Zero | the same run | before the outpost, the Theta Splice repair or the project completion | one room — and the ending verb is not stored as a choice, so the other ending stays available |
Reload first: the failures the studio tells you to rewind
Two documents overlap here — the 1.1.2 patch notes, which fix things, and the known-issues list, which tells you to reload around the rest. Read together they form a repair table nobody else keeps in one place.
| Symptom | Source | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Exited the elevator before the doors locked (high ping) | known issues, still open | reload from the last checkpoint, then ride it again without stepping out early |
| Jumped onto certain plants in Chapter 6 and got stuck in collision | known issues, still open | it should trigger a respawn; if it does not, reselect the checkpoint |
| A movable object pushed you through the terrain | known issues, still open | reselect the checkpoint; do not push from that angle again |
| Empty-hand icon disappeared | known issues, still open | reload the checkpoint |
| Black screen while a checkpoint loaded | fixed in 1.1.2 | update, then reselect |
| Fuses gone in Daphne's Lab after a failed puzzle | fixed in 1.1.2 | on the patched build they stay; on an older build, reselect |
| Final plant pot broke with the right colours | fixed in 1.1.2 | update, then reselect the pot sequence |
| Push block with ears refused to move, or a door locked behind you | fixed in 1.1.2 | reload; if it repeats on the patched build, it is a puzzle problem |
| An achievement in the Routing Power checkpoint never appeared | known issues, still open | the studio acknowledges it; nothing you can do in the room fixes an award that failed |
The pattern is the useful part: almost every save-shaped problem in this game is a state problem, and a state problem clears on a fresh load. That is why both official documents end up saying the same sentence in different words.
When it is not a save problem
Reloading is cheap but not free, so check for the puzzle failure first. Three signs say the game is fine and the room is not:
- Inputs produce sound but no state change, in a room where the same action worked a minute ago — that is the desync case; reload as a pair.
- A checkpoint fires twice, or an achievement appears that your partner did not get — also desync.
- Nothing responds anywhere, including the menu — that is a client problem, not a checkpoint problem.
If none of those fit, the room simply is not solved, and the five-step rescue costs less than a rewind.
What this page could not confirm
Three things are still outside the public record, and we would rather mark them than guess: whether a partially solved room is preserved inside a checkpoint, whether a mid-puzzle quit and a rewind land on exactly the same state, and whether collectibles survive a reselect. The studio documents the reselect route but not the internals. If you can show a case that contradicts the table above, the contact page takes corrections.
Does We Were Here Tomorrow autosave?
Yes. The studio's support article says progress is automatically saved, and most puzzles write a checkpoint once the puzzle is complete and the pair has entered the next room. There is no save button to press and nothing to remember to do.
How do I reload a checkpoint?
The host goes to the main menu, selects change under the journey, chooses Start New Journey and picks the last checkpoint both players recognise. If the list will not respond, the wrong player is hosting — swap hosts and repeat the steps.
Why are my checkpoints greyed out?
Almost always because the player who is not hosting is trying to select them. The checkpoint list belongs to the host, and the studio's own fix is to swap who hosts the session.
Do I lose achievements if I reselect a checkpoint?
No. A reselect resumes the same run, and achievements already unlocked stay on the profile. Only the room state is restored, so the trophy list is the safe record of what you have actually completed.
Is it safe to quit in the middle of a puzzle?
Not ideal, and the studio names it as a cause of lost progress: closing the game incorrectly, or losing power or internet mid-puzzle. Finish the room, walk into the next one, and then close the game if you have to stop.
