Cuphead players on Windows are running into a nasty save bug (update)

Cuphead players are running into a glitch that sounds pretty terrible: The Windows 10 version of the game will sometimes delete save files after leaving the game with a simple keystroke. And for a game that can take hours to progress through a single world, that’s not a great bug to run into.

Reports on Reddit and Twitter (and from Polygon’s Ross Miller, who lost several hours off his save) suggest that they’ve lost large amounts of progress after using the alt-tab keys to quickly exit the game. This appears to be exclusive to the Windows 10 version of the game for the most part, which means that those who intend to use the Xbox Play Anywhere feature to transition from Xbox One to PC are running into it, alongside Windows users.

“I preloaded the game prior to release through the Windows Store, and successfully installed the game yesterday,” wrote one Reddit user affected by the bug. “Since then, any time I exit the game, I seem to lose a good chunk of progress. ... I'm constantly losing about 10% of my progress every time I exit the game. It's a broken mess, and for such a difficult game it's extremely frustrating.”

Reviews on the Windows Store feature similar complaints, with one person writing that the next time they logged in after defeating one of the game’s cruelest bosses, the majority of their recently streamed progress was gone.

“If this continues, this justifies as game breaking and unplayable and I will be requesting a refund,” wrote reviewer Allmightu.

There doesn’t appear to be a fix for this yet, but one user reached out to developer StudioMDHR, which provided a short-term fix of its own.

"There is a temporary workaround, which is to avoid using ALT-Tab to leave the game for any amount of time,” a member of the development team reportedly told one player via email. “Apparently it disconnects the game from being able to save any further progress. Hopefully knowing that, you can avoid this issue until we are able to send a patch."

We’ve reached out to Studio MDHR for further details on the extent of this bug, including whether it’s exclusive to the Windows 10 version of the game. For now, be sure to take extra care with your Cuphead saves — this is not the kind of game you want to lose any amount of playtime on.

Update: A representative for StudioMDHR confirmed that a patch for the save glitch is on the way.

“It’s true, we are aware of the issue and are working on a patch for it as we speak,” StudioMDHR said. “We hope to have it pushed out very soon.”