While you are allowed to use your own save for speedruns, it is strongly recommended to instead use a maxed out save file.

Available Save Files

Ellomenop has posted a save that has all of the run history scrubbed from it except for 50 empty runs. This allows you to have your own times and clear history, but with everything unlocked. This also solves a problem that larger saves have, where the game hitches every time it auto-saves. Over the course of a run, this hitching can cost a lot of time.

Haelian has posted his save that has been around basically forever. Having this save available got a lot of runners started, but because of the extensive run history, there is a very noticeable hitch whenever the game auto-saves.

Save File Location

On Windows, save files are stored in My Documents\Saved Games\Hades On Mac, save files are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Supergiant Games/Hades

Loading a Save

1. Choose which profile you want to load the file into
2. Copy your "Profile#.sjson" and "Profile#.ctrls" files for your primary profile, and rename them to the number you want.
3. Copy the Profile#.sav for the save you want to load, and name it to the number you want.

For example, if your primary save is Profile 1, and you want to load the scrubbed save in Profile 2:

1. Navigate to your platform's Save File Location.
2. Copy Profile1.sjson and rename it Profile2.sjson
3. Copy Profile1.ctrls and rename it to Profile2.ctrls
4. Download the save from the Resources tab and extract the .sav file to your Desktop or another location.
5. Rename the file Profile2.sav and copy it into your platform's Save File Location.

Recovering a Run After "Give Up" or a Crash

1. Navigate to your platform's Save File Location
2. Rename Profile#.v.sav to _Profile#.v.sav
3. Edit Profile#.sjson with Notepad; Remove the line "ValidCheckpoint = false"

Save File Breakdown

**Profile#.sav** - This is your main save, with all of your data up to this point.

**Profile#_Temp.sav** This file holds your current run. If you Give Up, or Alt+F4/Crash during combat, this file is marked invalid, and you load into your main save.

**Profile#.v.sav** - This file holds a flag that marks your current run valid or invalid.

**Profile#.ctrls** - This file holds any changes you made to your control scheme

**Profile#.sjson** - This file holds display/settings changes, and marks your _Temp.sav file invalid.

**Various .bak files** - These are backups of the files they are named after.