What is Save Scumming in Baldur's Gate 3 and How to Do It

Baldur’s Gate 3 is arguably one of the most rewarding and intimidating games to play this year. Not only is the game a helluva time sink, but it also has a myriad of ways for gameplay sessions can play out thanks to its Dungeons & Dragons tabletop-inspired dice-rolling mechanic. Unless you have complete confidence in your decision-making skills (and player stats), there’s a high chance you’ll wish you could have another go at a specific battle encounter or risky dialogue choice option. This is where the tried and true method of save scumming can come in handy.

What is Save Scumming in Baldur’s Gate 3?

Save scumming operates similarly to quick saving, though it comes with a bit of baggage in the gaming world. Basically, save scumming is the act of reloading a save you made prior to making a consequential decision, be it dialogue or combat based, until you reach a more desirable outcome. Why you decided to save scum can range from a multitude of reasons. For instance, you could save scum because you don’t think you and your party can survive a perilous battle, you failed a dice roll preventing you from reading text from a magic-infused item, or worse, you fell short of courting party members like Astarion.

Although players are in disagreement over save scumming being a respectable way to go about playing Baldur’s Gate 3 — some argue it takes away from the uniqueness of gameplay consequences — the tactic is valuable if you want to reach a more desired outcome. It also doesn’t hurt that BG3 makes save scumming exceedingly easy to pull off regardless of if you’re playing it on PC or console.

How to Save Scum in Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC and PS5

If you’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC, you can save scum with a combination of hitting the F5 button on your keyboard to quick save before making a precarious decision and F8 to load your last save. If you’re playing on PlayStation 5, you can save scum by entering the pause menu and pressing the triangle (PlayStation) button to quick save.

Before you get too rambunctious with save scumming, you should know that Baldur’s Gate 3 limits how many quick saves you can make to 25. You can increase the number of quick saves to a maximum number of 50 saves by navigating to the Save Options tab in the options menu.

Ultimately, there is no correct or incorrect way to play BG3. If you want to save scum in order to reach your preferred outcome with many of the game’s branching story arcs and combat encounters, all the power to you. However, if you’re playing BG3 co-op style with a friend, they may grow weary of your indecisiveness.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently available on PlayStation 5 and PC.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on Xbox. At the time of writing, it is currently unavailable on Xbox. We regret the error.