Does Clearing Cache Delete Game Progress?

When your computer starts freezing up because of a game, one of the things that experts recommend you do is to clear the cache. But this begs an important question – how will this affect your game? Is there a chance you could lose all of the critical data you have saved up?

Fortunately, clearing the cache does not remove essential elements of your game. In fact, you can routinely clear cache without having any effect on your gameplay at all. However, if you clear data, your game can be affected, so keep that in mind when attempting that.

Are you curious about how to clear your cache and what clearing cache even does? If you want to learn more about this subject, we have everything cleared out in the rest of this article!

Can Clearing Cache Ruin A Game?

If you’ve been having trouble managing disk space on your gaming computer, one of the things that experts will tell you to do is to clear the cache. However, you don’t have to worry; going through this step will not affect your game. Clearing cache just helps you get rid of some of the temporary files that are stored on the console or computer.

After a time, this can cause the game to freeze if the cache is corrupted with something else. Therefore, removing cache is necessary and should be done routinely. However, in some extreme cases, you may have to clear data. Now, this will disrupt your game, so keep both in mind when deciding what to do with your issue.

How To Clear Game Cache

With all of the information above in mind, sometimes, you do need to go ahead and clear your cache. So, how do you do that on different gaming consoles? We’ve explained how you can achieve this on the major gaming consoles, including the Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam.

PlayStation 5

If you look into the PlayStation 5, there isn’t actually a specific option that you can select to clear the cache. However, here’s what you can do instead:

Switch off your PlayStation 5, and do not enter into rest mode.
Once the lights on your machine are completely off, you can unplug the PlayStation 5 from the power source.
Now, wait for a minute or two and then proceed to the next step.
Plug the power back into the PlayStation 5, and switch on the device as well.

You will notice that the cache is clear, and your device will work far smoother as a result.

PlayStation 4

There is a method to clear the cached data on a PlayStation 4 that is quite similar to the PlayStation 5. In the absence of a menu button, you will need to follow a process similar to the one described above. To get the cache cleared out from your console, switch off the PlayStation 4, and unplug it from any outlets. Wait for at least a minute or so, and then plug it in again and switch on the console. This should clear out all of the cache stored on your device and get it running back to normal.

Xbox Series X

With the Xbox Series X, there are two ways available to clear the cache. First and foremost, you can do this using the software. Here’s how that works:

Press the Xbox symbol in the middle of the controller device.
This will open up the menu; scroll to the ‘Profile & System’ button.
Select the settings by selecting the A button.
Choose the option ‘Devices & Connections.’
Now select the option ‘Blu-Ray.’
From here, choose Persistent Storage, and then ‘Clear Persistent Storage.’

Aside from this, there is also another method to clear the cache. You can switch off the Xbox through the controller or the console. Then, it would help if you plugged off the Xbox from the power source. Please wait for a couple of minutes, and then switch it on again. Then Xbox will completely clear the cache.

For the Xbox Series S, you can use the unplugging method only, whereas for Xbox Series X, you can try using both methods to clear the cache.

Steam

Steam is a platform that lets you download games onto your computer. There is a feature on this platform to help you verify the integrity of the cache you have stored on your computer. You can run this process with no issue, but always do it only when there are no other intensive commands being run on your computer. Here’s how to do this:

Start running the Steam software on your computer.
In the library, select the game you want to check, and right-click.
Once you right-click, select the option ‘Properties.’
From the next window, choose Local Files and then choose the button ‘Verify Integrity of Game Cache…’
This will enable Steam to verify the files.
Once the process is done, the window will close.

Battle.net

If you are using battle.net, you can handle cache issues with a simple process. You need to delete the cache folder. This is because the cache folder can fall prey to corruption pretty quickly. So, here’s how you can accomplish this goal in just a few steps.

Make sure you close any active programs.
Open up the Task Manager from the search menu of your computer.
Select the option ‘Processes’ from the Task Manager window.
From here, find out if agent.exe or Blizzard Update Agent is working.
If it is, select End Process to completely switch it off.
Go to the folder that contains the cache.
Now, open up the Run dialogue, and type in: %ProgramData%
If you see Blizzard Entertainment, then right-click it and delete it.
Now, relaunch the Battle.net app to start the game again.

Conclusion

Clearing cache can help keep your computer and your games safe, and if all goes well, it shouldn’t hurt your progress at all. We hope that this article was informative and helped you manage your games properly!