Updates can and do corrupt save files across entire player bases
In the quiet hours spent building a life inside a digital frontier, the threat of losing that progress to a corrupted file or an untimely update is a small but real anxiety of modern play. Far Far West, like most games, stores its save data in a hidden corner of Windows — a deliberate obscurity meant to protect casual users, but one that can leave dedicated players feeling locked out of their own history. Knowing where your saves live, and how to copy them somewhere safe, is a modest act of digital stewardship that costs almost nothing and can spare real grief.
- Hours of progress in Far Far West are quietly vulnerable — a single corrupted file or a poorly timed update can erase everything a player has built.
- The save files hide inside Windows' AppData folder, a directory Microsoft conceals by default to protect the system from accidental deletion.
- Unlocking visibility requires a short detour through File Explorer's View settings, where enabling Hidden items brings the entire AppData structure into the open.
- Once found, the SaveGames folder can be copied to an external drive in seconds — a simple act that transforms fragile progress into something recoverable.
- The rhythm of backing up after each session, or at minimum every few weeks, is the difference between a minor inconvenience and a genuinely painful loss.
For anyone who has invested real time into Far Far West, the possibility of losing that progress to a corrupted save or a botched update is worth taking seriously. The saves themselves live at C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\FarFarWest\Saved\SaveGames — a precise address inside one of Windows' less-visited neighborhoods. The files appear as long numeric strings with a .save extension, alongside .sav backup and settings files and a Steam-generated .vdf file.
The main obstacle is that AppData is hidden by default. Microsoft keeps it out of sight to prevent accidental deletions, but the fix is simple: open File Explorer, click the View tab, find the Show option, and select Hidden items. A checkmark will confirm the setting is active, and the folder will remain visible from that point forward.
With AppData accessible, the path to the saves is clear. The recommended move is to copy the entire SaveGames folder to a separate drive — an external SSD or HDD — so that a failure on the main machine doesn't take everything with it. As for how often to do this, the calculus is personal, but backing up after meaningful sessions is cheap insurance. Updates have been known to corrupt saves across entire player bases, and the thirty seconds it takes to copy a folder is a small price for genuine peace of mind.
If you've sunk hours into Far Far West, the last thing you want is to lose your progress to a corrupted file or a botched update. The good news is that backing up your saves is straightforward once you know where to look—and where to look is buried in one of Windows' hidden folders.
Your Far Far West save files live in a specific corner of your system: C:\Users\[your user folder]\AppData\Local\FarFarWest\Saved\SaveGames. The actual save data itself appears as a long string of numbers with a .save extension. You'll also find backup files and settings using the .sav extension, and a .vdf file that Steam generates for your particular installation. None of this is exotic or hard to understand once you're standing in the right directory.
The real friction point is that AppData is hidden by default in Windows. Microsoft tucks it away to keep casual users from accidentally deleting something critical. To unhide it, open a File Explorer window and look for the View tab near the top of the interface. Click it, then find the Show option and select Hidden items. Once you do this, all hidden folders become visible going forward, and you'll see a checkmark next to Hidden items to confirm the setting stuck.
Once you can see AppData, the path to your saves is straightforward. The smartest move is to copy the entire SaveGames folder to somewhere safe—ideally another drive altogether. An external SSD or HDD works perfectly fine, assuming you're not someone with a track record of losing hardware or misplacing data. The point is to have a copy somewhere that isn't on your main machine.
How often should you back up? That depends on your tolerance for risk. A reasonable baseline is every few weeks, but there's a stronger argument for doing it after every gaming session. Updates can and do corrupt save files across entire player bases—it's rare but it happens. If you've just spent an evening making real progress, spending thirty seconds to copy a folder to an external drive is cheap insurance. Do whatever frequency feels right for your own peace of mind.
Notable Quotes
Backing up save files every few weeks is recommended, or after every session in case an update corrupts saves across the board— Guide recommendation
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a game guide need to tell people where their saves are? Shouldn't the game just handle that?
In theory, yes. But Far Far West stores saves in the standard Windows AppData location, which is hidden by default. Most players never look there. If something goes wrong—corruption, a bad update—they have no backup and no idea where to find the original file to recover it.
So this is really about disaster prevention.
Exactly. You're protecting yourself against the one update that breaks everything, or the drive failure you didn't see coming. It's not glamorous, but it matters.
How often do game updates actually corrupt saves?
Not constantly, but it happens enough that experienced players treat it as a real risk. Once it happens to you, you never skip a backup again.
Is there a reason to back up more than once?
If you're playing regularly and making progress you'd hate to lose, backing up after each session means you never lose more than one session's worth of work. It's the difference between losing an hour and losing ten hours.
And the external drive thing—is that really necessary?
If your main drive fails, a backup on the same machine is useless. An external drive protects you against hardware failure, not just file corruption.