How to Fish Save Location, Autosave & Steam Cloud

Start with the write rules.

Patch 1.0.6 set them: Save, Main Menu and Quit write to disk, autosave runs every minute, and a crash no longer writes a fresh crash-state save.

Patch 1.0.12 moved saves to Steam Cloud. An old save needs one upload first. That is the next section.

Two more things people mix up. Patch 1.0.9 says save corruption is “hopefully fixed” — that is a fix attempt, not a promise that every broken save comes back. Patch 1.0.10 adds persistence for up to 64 dropped items, prioritizing weapons, tools, quest items and creatures.

How Steam Cloud sync works

Patch 1.0.12 shipped on September 4, 2026 and switched saves to Steam Cloud. The announcement stresses one thing: launch the game once on the PC that already has that save, then quit normally once, so Steam can upload it.

Follow this order:

1. Decide where the campaign you want to keep actually lives — which PC or Steam Deck.
2. Go back to that device. Update to 1.0.12 or newer, open the game, and confirm the campaign, islands, gear and money are right.
3. Save once. Leave through Main Menu or Quit, close the game, and keep the device online while Steam uploads.
4. Only then open the game on the other device. Check the campaign and your important gear before playing on.
5. Keep the local backup on the source device until the new device looks correct.

Steam Deck Verified and Steam Cloud are separate things. Verified covers handheld compatibility; save syncing arrived in 1.0.12. Use the same Steam account on both devices.

If the destination device already opened a blank campaign, do not assume it will pull the right one back. Repeat the upload on the source device, compare against your local backup first, and only then decide what to clean up.

Where the save lives on Windows

Community and third-party reports agree on this path:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Dazed Games\How to Fish\Saves

That path is cross-checked, not published on the Steam store page. If your install differs, search the parent Dazed Games\How to Fish folder.

Back up before you repair anything

1. Close the game and Steam.
2. Copy the whole How to Fish folder to a dated backup location. Not just Saves.
3. Open the game once and test Load. Never overwrite your only backup.
4. Note the build, the save slot, the last successful hand-in, and whether the failure followed a crash, a co-op session or equipping a weapon.

Infinite boat loading or vanished items? Compare the dated backup with the live folder first, then test Load versus New Game. Keep loose boat objects, inventory and host state separate.

When equipping a weapon crashes the game, run this isolation pass:

1. Close the game and Steam.
2. Keep the dated copy of the whole folder.
3. Update the game and verify the files.
4. Load once without equipping the suspected weapon.
5. Separate “only this weapon crashes” from “every weapon crashes” and from “Load itself crashes”.
6. Never hand-edit unknown JSON, download a replacement save, or delete your only copy.

There is no official weapon-removal tool and no rollback tool. If it still fails, post in the official Dazed Games Discord with the build, save slot, weapon name, steps that trigger it, and your backup status.

The developer has never promised to restore a corrupted weapon. Steam Cloud gives you sync and a cloud copy. It does not replace a local backup, and it will not undo an overwrite. What this page can do is preserve your evidence and spare you a second overwrite.

If a dropped item disappeared after Patch 1.0.10, check the 64-item cap first, then check whether it was a weapon, tool, quest item or creature. Priority decides who gets saved first. It does not mean every old dropped item comes back.

Source: official Patch 1.0.12, Patch 1.0.10, Patch 1.0.9, Patch 1.0.6 and repeated Steam Community save reports.