Review: Returnal
PS5-exclusive takes the roguelite genre to a familiar, yet unique level
Selene wakes up, again, her futuristic semi-automatic pistol in hand. No heavy breathing or gasping for air in her standard-issue helmet, like the last 10 times she woke up next to her crashed ship, Helios. She dusts herself off, grabs her firearm and heads into the murky, slimy, tentacle filled first biome of PS5 exclusive Returnal, hoping the player can direct her back home and off the planet Atropos.
For anyone who is invested in psychological horror, whether it’s Annihilation and its nature-based body horror or the deceivingly dark and weeby Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the plot for Returnal may seem predictable with its Groundhog Day premise. Hints are all over the environment as to how Selene and Helios ended up crashing on this planet and why Selene can’t seem to get off of it. Players with a keen eye may see the last cutscene coming from a mile away. But, the magic of Returnal lies in the real-time skill the player builds to see the end while picking up on these clues, not the conclusion itself.
Returnal is a single-player roguelite, taking a page from recent favorites in the genre like Hades and The Binding of Isaac by scaling back the stat heavy, build-based gameplay and focusing more on the moment to moment mystery and hectic action of getting back to Earth. The roguelite aspect — dying kicks you back to the “beginning” of the game with limited permanent equipment — is more of a story building gameplay mechanic for Returnal than for either of the two previously mentioned titles.
The story itself is more personal and grounded, despite being set in space. The player is fed pieces of Selene’s life before the crash, hallucinations, key items and more as they explore and progress. Selene is a believable protagonist, wanting to find answers as to why she keeps waking up on Atropos after each death, just as much as the player. The story isn’t just a backdrop for vaporizing many-limbed alien monsters and cyborgs, but a reason to care about your journey. It’s not about seeing the credits roll; It’s about learning more about Selene’s past, her childhood traumas and her inspiration to become a space explorer. Selene is human, and she learns about Atropos with the player and reacts to discoveries on a foreign planet like we all would.
As a third-person shooter, Returnal succeeds at blending the bullet hell of developer Housemarque’s PS4 title Resogun with action-oriented shooting a la 2019’s Control. Guns are punchy, lasers feel accurate and responsive and each weapon has its own personality thanks to the DualSense features, letting players press triggers lighter or harder for specific attacks. No fight seems unfair since the controls are so tight and responsive at a buttery 60 FPS. The options given to the player are simple enough so the player can test their limits. Part of the learning curve with Returnal is mastering combat through dodging, melee pot shots and consistent offense and using it to the player’s advantage. See a challenge room, full of waves of enemies with rewards throughout, in the third biome but don’t want to take a chance on starting over from the beginning? That’s your choice whether or not you take that gamble.
Returnal has some of the most interesting gun designs I’ve seen in 2021, with Housemarque once again sticking to their roots in twin stick shooters with lasers, automatic guns, rocket launchers, pistols and projectiles that automatically load themselves back into the gun. Each gun is a new opportunity to get used to a new way to shoot and the overload system, which rewards players with bonus damage and stats for reloading their gun in rhythm like Gears of War. Sometimes, Returnal felt like a straight up twin-stick shooter, my finger on the trigger and my two thumbs locked into the sticks and swerving around projectiles. Returnal makes sci-fi shooting engaging and entertaining while remaining simple and rewarding for players who choose to upgrade specific weapons on their journey.
Returnal is all about risk and reward, rather than building your perfect build based on previous knowledge like other modern roguelikes/roguelites. Aggression is rewarded with currency to purchase upgrades in a potential safe room, and players can spend as much time in a specific biome as they want before moving to the next one or fighting the boss. No forced progression, but rather an abundance of choices and potential to pick up negative effects with the positives.. Think you can take the boss with your pistol and limited health? Head straight down the main path and avoid picking up too many malfunctions along the way. Want to beef up before facing one of the behemoths? Take your time picking off enemies, stack your currency, upgrade your health and then head to the boss room when you’re ready.
In Returnal’s second act, more health pickups have a chance to either damage your character or give you a malfunction, which limits your abilities until a condition is cleared. For example, one malfunction may have all enemies leave behind a pool of acid after death until the player opens three chests. Think you can live with that? Keep trucking and try not to get too close to your enemies. Parasites offer similar negative effects but with an added positive attribute like a higher weapon upgrade rate or even an extra life. Strategic skill building can happen in Returnal, but no powerups exist that will make the player feel invincible, unstoppable or like the game is a breeze. Powerups are built for play style.
The difficulty of Selene’s odyssey can be a turn off, especially for gamers who do not play a lot of bullet hell games or shooters. As someone who has beaten Undertale and Cuphead multiple times, the difficulty of dodging in Returnal is below par in terms of pressure exerted by enemies in those games, even in its final hours. After a few hours on biome one, I was more used to dodging orbs and responding with my own blasts in the meantime. There is a learning curve, which each boss looks to scoff at toward the end of each biome. Sadly, there are no difficulty options. Either get used to dying and learning or hope you can find the right gun or strategy that fits you.
Bosses are by far the most intense challenge in the game, with quick melee attacks, multiple health bars and flurries of bullets coming toward the player. Learning how to dodge in rhythm, take every opportunity to take damage and capitalize on Selene’s very strong melee attack are the only ways to make it through Returnal, and that’s before the first ending. The latter half of bosses require more dashing and abuse of weak points between projectiles that can shave off a quarter of your life. Returnal is not a game with an occasional challenge with set pieces as the focus but a never-ending gauntlet that pats you on the back every time you reach that next milestone, be it a newly beaten boss or a fancy gun that shoots poisonous polyps. Getting to the next level feels rewarding, especially due to the shortcuts they unlock. The permanent abilities, like the grappling hook and melee attack, feel amazing to earn after multiple runs and death after death. For those who crave an additional challenge, weekly challenges and online leaderboards challenging players to complete tasks and full runs are updated often.
Returnal also builds the tension and atmosphere of Atropos’ varied environments of warped jungles, cursed sand dunes and frozen epitaphs through slick sound design and visual detail. Even at 1080p Returnal shines with bountiful particle effects, rain washing over every object in the starting area and each enemy exploding into a fireworks display of currency, tentacles and goop.. Selene’s past bodies and scattered alien corpses make the planet seem deserted and decaying over time. Each gun’s phaser packs a punch both through the television speakers and the DualSense controller.
Sadly, like many roguelikes/roguelites, some players may never experience the true beauty and progression of Returnal. The game allows no saves mid-run, meaning that you better die or put your PS5 into rest mode if you want to take an extended break. While I’m someone who likes to focus on games and am the main gamer in my house, this could raise some difficulties for shared households or even gamers who want to switch it up more often. This mechanic of roguelites is outdated, in my opinion, especially after continuing many runs from rest mode only to have them stopped short less than 20 minutes later.
A checkpoint system, save scum-proof, would make Returnal so much more accessible for PS5 users, many of whom are new gamers, who want to give the game a chance. It would make it more accessible to those not used to the genre as well. Roguelike players aren’t even fond of this aspect of the genre; Risk of Rain 2 has a very popular save mod on PC for this reason. Loop Hero recently updated to save progress mid-loop, and Hades saves every room. While Returnal does give the player shortcuts to the new area each time they complete the previous one, it can still be a pain to know you can’t play another game until you finish your current run, especially when a good run could easily last over an hour or two.
Returnal is one the PS5’s best titles post-launch, and definitely the most unique. Yes, Demon’s Souls is amazing and restored, proving that sometimes all a game needs is a facelift, but it’s not new. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a wonderful, fun as hell romp through dimensions for fans old and new, but we’ve played something like it before. Returnal combines familiar traits — psychological horror from an unreliable narrator, twin-stick shooter mechanics and roguelike storytelling — to bring a truly unique game to the PS5 before it reaches its first birthday. It’s not for the faint of heart when it comes to plot or gameplay, but it is definitely worth every PS5 owner’s time.