Tenebris Somnia save points are the burning candles called save flames, and there is no other way to save. You walk up to a flame and interact with it, and once a flame has been used up it is gone for the rest of the run.
How saving works
- There is no separate quick-save button. A flame is the save point.
- The number of flames is deliberately limited, and in one episode of the game the player has to erase active save points irreversibly to solve a spatial puzzle.
- Save right after you forge the Aurifer, before you fight any Relicta. That single manual save is what lets you finish SOLVE ET COAGULA, reload, and take MAGNUM OPUS without replaying the building.
- Save before every boss, and immediately after every room you have cleared of puzzle pressure, because enemies respawn when you revisit rooms — a cleared corridor is not permanently safe.
- Watch what you save at. Draining a flame with the Silver Bottle removes it for the rest of the run, so save at a flame you are sure you will not need again.
- On PC the local save file sits in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\TenebrisSomnia\Saved\SaveGames\, and the game supports Steam Cloud.
One extra mode has been announced for after release, in which the save system is tied to consumable items the way classic horror games tied saving to ink ribbons. It was announced but is not part of the current builds, so check the patch notes if you are chasing the harder ruleset — the save rules described above are the ones in the release. Where those flames sit along the route is in the walkthrough.
Where the Tenebris Somnia save points are
Save flames confirmed along the route:
- Floor 3, Study — on the left table as you come in.
- Floor 2 apartment, Bedroom.
- Floor 2 A.S. studio, Director's Office — next to the desk with the second Scissor Blade.
- Floor 1 hallway — before the theater, and again further in.
- Film school, near the stairwell — in the area you reach after the Sanguis chase.
- One room past the door the Hexagonal Stone opens, before you walk toward the curtains and the Vitria fight.
- The hotel rooms north of the production-company lobby, just before the sealed door where the Aurifer is forged.
The three flames that matter most are the ones you are meant to destroy. To fill the Silver Bottle you use the bottle on three save flames, and each one you drain is permanently extinguished. The route that keeps the later floors' flames intact uses the Floor 2 apartment Bedroom, the Floor 3 apartment Study, and the Director's Office inside the Floor 2 A.S. studio.
Emptying those three gives you the Bottle With Three Doses of Water and the achievement that asks you to fill the bottle by removing three save points. Save before you take a dose, because the flame dies the moment you use it — and it is worth keeping the Film School flame alive, since you return to the film school several times for the canisters, the copper key and the photo room. The three flames that the Silver Bottle costs are listed in the silver key guide.
The two deadlines
- The star lockers must all be opened before the Sanguis fight. Opening every one of them is the missable achievement Stella Plena, and the Sanguis encounter is the point of no return after which unopened lockers stay unopened.
- The save you make after forging the Aurifer has to survive. The Relicta ghosts and the Aurifer split the endings, so do not spend a flame you need for that save until you have finished both SOLVE ET COAGULA and MAGNUM OPUS.
Both deadlines are on the same page as the full achievement list — the achievements guide — with the rest of the missable ones.