How to Save in Resident Evil Requiem — Do You Need Ink Ribbons?
Saving in Requiem depends on your difficulty. Here's when the game autosaves for free and when you need ink ribbons and a typewriter to save.
The Save System Depends on Your Difficulty
Before you panic about losing progress, here’s the thing that confuses most new players: Resident Evil Requiem doesn’t have one save system. It has two, and which one you get is decided by the difficulty you picked at the start. On the easier modes, saving is automatic and free. On the harder modes, saving is a resource you have to manage, ink ribbons and all.
So the honest answer to “do I need ink ribbons” is: it depends. Let me lay out exactly when you do and when you don’t.
The Easy Modes: Free, Automatic Saving
If you’re playing on Casual or Standard Modern, you do not need ink ribbons. You don’t need to find a typewriter. The game handles saving for you.
These modes give you plenty of autosaves. The game checkpoints your progress regularly as you move through areas, so a death usually costs you very little. Casual is especially forgiving here, with frequent autosaves layered on top of its other safety nets like stronger aim assist and health that regenerates back to yellow. Standard Modern is a touch less hand-holdy than Casual overall, but it still autosaves generously and never asks you to manage save tokens.
For most first-time players, this is the experience. You play, the game saves quietly in the background, and you never think about it. If that’s what you want, pick Standard Modern and forget the save system exists.
The Hard Modes: Ink Ribbons and Typewriters
If you’re playing on Standard Classic or Insanity, the rules change. This is the old-school Resident Evil save system, and it’s a deliberate source of tension.
On these modes:
- You save at typewriters using ink ribbons. No typewriter, no manual save. Ink ribbons are a consumable item, so every save you make spends one.
- Autosaves are sparse. The game stops checkpointing you constantly. You can’t lean on automatic saves to bail you out, so where and when you choose to save becomes a real decision.
This is the heart of why people pick these modes. When saving costs a finite resource and the game won’t quietly back you up, every typewriter feels like relief and every risky stretch carries weight. You start asking yourself, “Is it worth a ribbon to save here, or do I push on and risk losing the last twenty minutes?” That anxiety is the classic survival horror feeling, and Standard Classic delivers it without making the enemies any tougher than Standard Modern. Insanity stacks that save tension on top of much harder combat.
Grace’s Saves Cost Ink Ribbons Too
One detail worth flagging: when you’re playing Grace on these harder modes, saving consumes ink ribbons just like it does elsewhere. She doesn’t get a pass. Given that Grace already runs on scarcity with her tiny 8-slot bag and no weapon upgrades, the ribbon cost adds another layer to her resource math. Plan your saves around the ribbons you actually have.
Where Do Ink Ribbons Come From?
You find ink ribbons as you explore, but you’re not entirely at the mercy of pickups. Requiem lets you craft them.
An Ink Ribbon Tin can be made using Infected Blood. So if you’re running low on ways to save, gathering Infected Blood gives you a path to crafting more ribbons rather than hoping the game hands you enough. Keep an eye on your Infected Blood supply on the harder modes, because it’s effectively your save currency once your found ribbons run dry.
This crafting option matters more than it sounds. On Standard Classic and Insanity, the worst feeling is reaching a typewriter with no ribbon. Knowing you can craft a tin from Infected Blood means you have a backup plan, as long as you’ve been collecting the materials along the way.
Quick Reference
| Difficulty | How you save | Ink ribbons needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Casual | Frequent autosaves | No |
| Standard Modern | Plenty of autosaves | No |
| Standard Classic | Typewriter saves, sparse autosaves | Yes |
| Insanity | Typewriter saves, sparse autosaves | Yes |
Which Should You Choose?
If the idea of managing ink ribbons sounds stressful rather than fun, stick to Standard Modern. You get genuine survival horror tension from the combat and resource scarcity without ever worrying about save tokens. It’s the mode I’d point most newcomers to.
If you specifically want that knot-in-your-stomach feeling of the original Resident Evil games, where saving was a privilege and not a guarantee, Standard Classic is built for you. Same enemies as Modern, but every save is a choice. Just remember to keep Infected Blood on hand so you can craft an Ink Ribbon Tin when you need one, and remember that playing Grace will spend ribbons too.
Either way, the smart habit is the same as it’s always been in this series: save when you’ve made real progress, save before anything that looks like a fight or a point of no return, and never assume the game saved for you on the harder modes. It didn’t.
A Word on Switching Difficulty Mid-Plan
If you started on Standard Modern and the free autosaves feel too relaxed, the save tension is exactly what Standard Classic adds. The enemies don’t get tougher, the saves do. That’s a clean way to raise the stakes on a replay without jumping straight to Insanity, which piles inflated enemy health, faster movement, bigger spawns, and shifted item locations on top of the ribbon system. Save the full Insanity save-and-survive grind for after you’ve already cleared a run, since you unlock it by beating the game on any difficulty.
The bottom line is simple. Pick the easy modes if you want to play without thinking about saving. Pick the hard modes if the act of saving is part of the horror you’re after. Both are valid ways to play Requiem, and both come down to that one choice you make on the very first screen.