Cloud save magic
Little moments that lead to big, bursting joy
To survive in this wild and weird and wacky-ass world, sometimes you need to sit back and appreciate the small things. Like video game cloud saves. We should all take a moment to appreciate video game cloud saves.
Because I have A Problem™ and Must Continually Lose Myself To New Technology™, I picked up an ASUS ROG Ally X the other week.
I’ve needed a Windows machine for work for some time, but, as it’s more of a support machine for my MacBook, I didn’t need a full-blown, bells-and-whistles system. I whittled down my choices between a mini PC or a handheld one, and, after some deep thought, I settled on the latter.
It was the right choice.
The Ally X is wonderful — something I’m certain I’ll explore in a future post — but that’s not the point of today, instead I want to talk about a bit of magic this device helped open my eyes to.
One interesting benefit to having a PC for the first time in probably close to 18 years is a whole world of gaming being revealed. Now, a title I’ve been playing is Atomfall, a survival-based action game set in a post-nuclear Britain.
Lack of time has influenced my gaming in recent years, which is why I’ve previously called for a “busy mode.” A benefit of the handheld PC is it enables this hobby to fit more easily into my life, as I don’t need to take up the entire living space at home while playing. And, of course, it’s better to be gaming than scrolling.
But one element that has really elevated this experience is cloud saves.
Effectively, I can play Atomfall on my TV-connected console then pick up my Ally X and pick up right where I left off.
On the surface, this isn’t anything particularly special. It’s a small file synced between devices. We’re used to this. It’s part of modern life. Who amongst us doesn’t use Spotify on different devices? Or log into our email or drives from all over the world?
Despite that, it feels like a miracle. Picking up a game exactly where I left it is a little piece of magic that makes my life feel so much better.
Gaming is no longer something that has to be a big investment or takes lots of time. With my handheld and cloud saves, I can fit it in during short bursts that, otherwise, I well could’ve squandered by scrolling.
It’s a small, seemingly inconsequential thing like this that’s easy to miss, especially amongst all the horror and global ramifications of the never-ending news cycle and daily online discourse. But missing something like cloud saves is a disservice to all the positive in the world too.
Life consists of miniscule moments, of these pocket-sized snatches of joy — and synced game states. is one of them.
There’s so much more we could talk about on this topic and, one day, we will. But, for this single moment, I want to take a second to breathe in and reflect, to take stock of something uplifting and bask in it.
Because cloud saves are the fucking best.