Another loss of progress comment here. A lot of people are mentioning the loss, but not providing any details. Let's change that.
First, it happens on a crash, or at least what feels like one.
Second, (if it matters) Steam/PC user/Windows10, also using an Xbox controller (with plenty of battery). Everything appears to be up to date with the game as well.
I don't exactly remember when the first happened, but it was about halfway through Dead Horse Lake.
I was spending time farming infamy bosses for the new items. I believe I'd gotten up to the level 5 boss, killed him, and then ran away to save myself. I hadn't gone straight back to the grotto, and in fighting something else, I ended up dying. In respawning at the grotto, it mentioned I had hit adulthood again. I figured that odd and checked my evolution screen only to find that the new evolutions I'd gotten weren't there anymore (regardless of me having not equipped them), and my level had gone down from 17 back to 12. The upgrades to the evolutions I DID have left had reverted to the time I was at that level. I figured it my mistake for not saving at the grotto after killing the infamy bosses and simply shrugged it off and carried on.
The second time it happened.. makes me really upset. I re-did everything with the bosses, got my upgrades going, SAVED AT THE GROTTO, and carried on. I finished everything except for the elder grates, and moved on to Golden Shores. Cleared just about the entire area, max upgraded all my evolutions, including the level 6 infamy bosses and landmarks from the 3 zones. I was finishing up the kill quests, saving at the grotto regularly. I believe I was level 24 at this point, and went to the Apex Mako encounter. The game locked up with the "Apex Mako" text in the corner, but still in the ocean screen, with no shark present on screen. Like it got stuck loading before the splash screen for the mako entrance. No buttons do anything except for the start button. I wasn't able to access the map menu but I was able to access the start menu. I had literally saved minutes before going to do that encounter, so I wasn't too worried. I hit "Return to Main Menu", it allowed me to hit the start button, and continue my game. However, upon spawning I find myself back at level 12 all over again, missing all of my evolution progress except the same things I'd had when it loaded from the first crash.
THE ODD PART HERE, is my map progress is still completed. My landmarks and boxes are still found in all 3 zones. But I respawn in the Dead Horse Lake grotto after having not been there for hours, as if my SHARK PROGRESS itself is not saving. It also looks like some quest completion saving is also on the fritz, seeing as all my recent saves were done by fast traveling to the Golden Shores grotto, but somehow some of the Fawtick Bayou Population Control quests aren't completed anymore. The quest is back to 1/3, and it's telling me I need to kill the Apex and check on Scaly Pete again. Buuuuut I'm still up to the Apex Mako quest in Golden Shores.
At this point I just stopped playing. I'm in love with this, but there's no point if I'm going to lose hours and hours of progress. Players shouldn't have to predict game crashes and manually backup files on a regular basis to enjoy the game. Steam says I'm just under 11 hours in. My map progress is solid. But all the work I've put into my shark is gone. I don't mind redoing a couple quests here and there because of a glitch, but that's a LOT of material farming and upgrades down the drain. That's a LOT of kill experience down the drain. The map progress may have reverted just as well seeing as I'm not even a high enough level anymore to survive those areas, let alone progress in quests.
An extremely frustrating glitch. Unfortunately I don't see any reason to keep playing this at this point in time if I can't trust my progress to save. From 12 to 24. Gone. And I see some people are reporting much more severe losses. I adore this game. It's simple, and fun, and plays well, and super controller friendly. It's unique and I enjoyed blowing most of my day off today on it.. until this nonsense. I hope some of the details I left above help give some direction towards what's going on here. Again, it seems like different progress saves independently of one another or something. Somehow map progress and most quests saved for me, but shark progress didn't. Other players mentioning full map loss and starting over in the tutorial. I didn't feel the need to take screenshots so early on in the game so I don't have any of my furthest progress, but I took these attached screenshots to at least show where the game dumped me back to. Hope it helps, and looking forward to a fix! Thank you for the game!