Sony Patent Could Make Reliving Your Fave Gaming Moments Easier

Often, games have all sorts of memorable moments scattered throughout that we may want to replay for whatever reason, be they thrilling cutscenes or spectacular gameplay setpieces. However, depending on a game’s save system, accessing these moments again can be a massive chore. However, Sony is currently working on a new feature for PlayStation consoles that will create points throughout a game, not unlike the chapter breaks on a DVD, and let you replay the game from these points whenever you want, which should make re-experiencing those favorite moments much easier.

In a patent filed on November 2, and spotted by Exputer, the new system would allow you to re-experience specific cutscenes and gameplay from specific points during a game’s campaign. The document, titled “Content Streaming With Gameplay Launch,” explains that the system will create these “trigger points” as you move through the story. Of course, some games already break their games up into missions or chapters and provide the option to replay any of these bite-sized chunks. But with Sony’s new patent, every game would effectively have these points, and you’d be able to easily go back and replay your fave moments or potentially make different decisions in games with branching paths.

Instead of having to run through a full game again to re-experience a specific moment that really resonated with you, you’d be able to boot up the game, select the chapter you want a la a DVD’s chapter select screen, and pick up from there. Some games have a similar feature already built in. Remedy Entertainment’s time-bending third-person shooter Quantum Break is one such game, allowing you to replay certain chapters without playing through the whole game. Quantic Dream’s narrative adventure game Detroit: Become Human and Supermassive Games’ interactive horror drama Until Dawn are two others with a similar sort of feature baked into their design.

Kotaku reached out to Sony for comment.

This is just a patent for now, meaning it’s unclear if and when Sony will actually implement the feature, but the ability to hop back into our favorite games from key points throughout sounds like something that would go a long way to making games way more replayable.