How To make your own Cloud Save system.

So if you don't know Already Ubisoft decided to discontinue cloud saves for Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag around 2013. As a result many people including myself lost game progress for one reason or another.

I will now explain how to make your own makeshift cloud save system via the use of Onedrive and Symbolic links via steps. If you have problems or would like information see the "Extra info" section.

• Make sure you have a Onedrive account and that it is linked to your windows user.
  
• In the Onedrive folder make a folder called "Cloud Saves".
  
• In the Cloud Saves folder make another folder called "AC4BF" or whatever you like. Just make sure you note what you change it too.
  
• From the Onedrive master folder right click the "Cloud Saves" folder you made and select "Always keep on this device". This will make the folder available offline.
  
• Check to see if the Ubisoft "savegame" folder is present at the location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames
  
• Inside the savegame folder there is a folder that has a unique name that is associated with you're ubisoft account, inside that folder move the folder: "437" to the "AC4BF" folder you made earlier.
  
• Open CMD as administrator and run the following, note that some text replacement is required: mklink /j "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames\USER SPECIFIC FOLDER NAME\437" "C:\Users\YOURE USER NAME\OneDrive\Cloud Saves\AC4BF\437"
  
• Make sure the command has worked, navigate to: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames\USER SPECIFIC FOLDER NAME" and see if the folder "437" now has a shortcut icon. Then open it to see if the files are there from the game. Should be 2-4 files.

This will explain what you will do on other systems to allow access to the cloud save. This is a one time setup and should only have to be done once.

• Similar to how you made the Cloud save you will need to have a Onedrive account linked to you're widows user.
  
• Similar to how you did before, from the Onedrive master folder right click the Cloud Saves folder and select "Always keep on this device".
  
• As before make sure the savegame folder is present.
  
• Enter the folder and sub folder and if the folder "437" is there delete it. (if you want to save this save data you may want to replace or make another folder for it on Onedrive)
  
• As before open CMD as administrator and run the following, note that some text replacement is required: mklink /j "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames\USER SPECIFIC FOLDER NAME\437" "C:\Users\YOURE USER NAME\OneDrive\Cloud Saves\AC4BF\437"
  
• As before check that the command has worked.

The method used above should work properly but its never a bad idea to have a backup. The method above does NOT prevent one machine from deleting the data from an uninstall as an example.

If you already use file history you are probably fine as by default file history backs up onedrive but you may wish to check on it to make sure at least the Cloud Saves folder is present in the backup list.

You can use whatever method you like for backing up the saves but the big thing to note is the files are located on Onedrive not the savegame folder.

This area will explain the concept of how this cloud save method works and just information.

The way this works is it is relying on Onedrive to sync stuff in the Onedrive folder to there servers and then to other machines when they sync to the server. This means you must not uninstall Onedrive or disable its service.

When moving from one machine to another you MUST let the first machine sync to Onedrive BEFORE shutting it down, this does not take long but if you don't let it sync you can end up with broken saves. One such happening is you close the game and shut down the computer before letting it sync. You start up a second computer and start the game to realize that the save was not updated. The problem is that now that you have opened the game on the second system the save is updated and considered newer. You start up the first computer and the save gets overwritten by the save on the second computer that was out of date but is considered the newest file.

As mentioned before this does allow for the game to be played offline however always reconnect to the internet before switching to another machine to allow Onedrive to sync.

If the savegame folder is not present there are a few possibilities as to why. if you have never started a ubisoft game the folder will not exist, start a game the folder will be generated. some have said the folder is only there if run as admin. I have not had this but its worth a try. if ubisoft connect is installed onto another drive it should be on the drive the ubisoft launcher is installed on.

This uses symbolic links to make the jump to Onedrive. A symbolic link is having the contents of one folder be accessed from two locations. in this method we move the actual files to Onedrive and then make a symbolic link to the original location so the program or game can still access it as if it where in that location.

The CMD command makes the symbolic link. the command structure is as follows;

• mklink = the command.
  
• /j = junction, meaning folder mode not file mode.
  
• First set of " " = The location you would like the link to be. In this case in the folder within the savegame folder so that the game can still interact with the save files.
  
• Second set of " " = The location of the actual folder. In this case the Onedrive folder we made.

Within the savegame folder there will be at least one possibly more folders with generated names. These names correlate to yours and other users ubisoft accounts. If there are multiple windows users that use ubisoft connect there will be more than one folder. you will have to deduce witch folder relates to your user. one of the easiest ways is to start up a game, save something, and check the last modified date.

Ubisoft decided to keep track of there savegames via the game ID within there own database. The STEAM version of AC4BF has the ID 437 the ubisoft native launcher version ID is 273

This will technically work with any game that you can locate the save file location for. I personally use this for Minecraft and Dolphin. (gamecube emulator)

As a note this can cause Onedrive to sync A LOT as anytime a file is changed it will upload a copy to Onedrive. This is particularly heavy for games such as Minecraft that break up world data into thousands of files.

It is also wise to keep a manual backup of the contents of the cloud save folder from time to time. As was stated before there is no data protections. If one computer decides to delete the files it will delete it off all systems.