Transferring saves between Steam accounts

The save file can be copied between accounts, but the game verifies the integrity of the file by comparing the Steam ID in the file with the ID of the account running it, so copying from a different account without editing it causes the game to launch with a "save damaged" error.

This can be used for example to access Mercenaries mode without having to complete the game if you have access to a finished save.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this guide is only about transferring saves between two different Steam accounts. It might work with save files from other platforms if you have access to their savedata.bin file but I haven't tested this. I didn't test this properly, but as far as I'm aware, Gold Edition saves can be transferred to Gold Edition games or by installing the DLC on the vanilla game, while vanilla game saves can be loaded with Gold Edition by installing the DLC and saving the game once.

The Steam ID is the first 8 bytes in the decoded file.

Normally located at C:\Program Files\Steam\userdata\<SteamID>\21690\remote/savedata.bin

This is the file we need to edit, so make a backup first and copy it to a different location where it can be referenced easily e.g. an empty folder in Documents.

You can also search in all the folders in userdata that contain the 21690 folder if you don't know your steam account folder name.

Open https://steamid.xyz/, paste your steam profile url and take note of Steam64 ID

The save file must be decoded, edited and reencoded. For this purpose, there's a python script based on picoleet's on the Resident Evil Modding forum[residentevilmodding.boards.net] I have modified to patch the Steam ID in the decoded file:

https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2249393 (Download[gitlab.com])

To run this script Python 3 is required: https://www.python.org

* Download the script and copy savedata.bin in the same directory
* Open a terminal or command prompt at that location and run the following commands
* python re5_save_editor.py decode savedata.bin
* python re5_save_editor.py encode decoded_savedata.bin --key=YOUR_STEAM64_ID
* copy encoded_decoded_savedata.bin to the original location and rename to savedata.bin

Replace python with python.exe or python3 if you're getting a "command not found" error.

Thanks to picoleet from the Resident Evil Modding forum https://residentevilmodding.boards.net/thread/15382/resident-evil-steam-save-editor for writing the original script for decoding and encoding RE5 save files