This quick guide will tell you everything you need to know.
How Mortal Shell’s Autosave Works
The game autosaves often, making sure the items you pick up stay in your inventory even if you die. You’ll lose your Tar if you die (just as you lose your souls in Dark Souls), but you keep items such as weltcaps, effigies, and glimpses.
You can force an autosave by:
Exiting the game to the main menu Quitting completely
This will let you keep your items and your Tar, as well as some progress, such as uncovered secret areas. But enemies will respawn.
The first save point after the tutorial is actually at the cliff after you exit the long tunnel. A mask totem on the left cliff wall will light up, letting you know your game has been saved.
It’s worth noting, though, that there is no on-screen icon or indication that the game is autosaving.
How Mortal Shell’s Manual Save Works
Manual saves work like they do at bonfires in the Souls series or sculptor’s idols in Sekiro. Here, Sester Genessa is your bonfire. You can find her in every major area, from Fallgrim to the Sanctum of Flame and the Abandoned Chamber. Speak with her, and you will manually save your game.
Where You Manual Save Determines Where You Spawn
Kind of.
Two things determine your spawn point:
The last Sester you spoke to Where you went after speaking to that Sester
If you look closely, you will find mask totems marking the entrances to new areas, like the one just outside of the tutorial area. These are often attached to walls or cliffsides. They act as proxy save points for the Sester in the next area. If they are active, the eyes of the masks are lit by blue flame.
Let’s say you speak with Sester Genessa at Fallgrim Tower. You then head to the Temple Grounds, but you don’t speak with Sester Genessa at the Temple Grounds, and you die. You will spawn back at Fallgrim Tower.
Speak with Sester Genessa in the Temple Grounds and then go back to Fallgrim, you’ll notice that the mask totem near the entrance is lit with blue flame. Die anywhere in Fallgrim, and you’ll spawn at the entrance to the Temple Grounds, at the mask totem.
You must speak with Sester Genessa in Fallgrim Tower to move the spawn point from the mask totem to the tower.
Use Saves to “Fast Travel”
Since all your items save when you exit the game, you can use Mortal Shell’s autosave system as a sort of fast travel. Get in a pinch, exit to the main menu, and continue your game. You’ll spawn either at the last Sester you spoke to or the last mask totem you visited.
You can legitimately fast travel to Sester Genessa with the Tarnished Mask and the Ornate Mask. But save method is a good stand-in during the early parts of the game.
You can also find out where you will spawn by looking at the game’s main menu. Fallgrim is a swamp. The Temple Grounds is a stone corridor lined with lanterns. And the Abandoned Chamber is an ice cave.
Just like Familiarity and weapon upgrades, figuring out how to save in Mortal Shell isn’t immediately clear. But once you understand how saving works, you can use it to your advantage, even using it to fast travel. If you came here wondering how to save in Mortal Shell, I hope this guide helped. For more tips, be sure to head over to our primary guides page for other tips, tricks, walkthroughs, and lists.
