Returnal

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Summary

Returnal combines action with roguelike gameplay into a third-person shooter where players fight to survive a hostile planet that changes with every death. Players can switch instinctively between firing modes by using a single adaptive trigger and can get right back into the action after dying. PS5's immersive 3D audio brings the alien world to life around the player, helping players navigate the intense positional combat. Coming to PlayStation 5.


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Returnal Reviews & Ratings

100
Review by Jonny5784 [user]
February 22, 2022

Best game of 2021 for me, absolutely loved it from start to finish, and the platinum trophy was also very fun and challenging although a fewBest game of 2021 for me, absolutely loved it from start to finish, and the platinum trophy was also very fun and challenging although a few of the files were needlessly hard to get and took literally hours upon hours to get to spawn, I don’t let trophy’s reflect my score and I absolutely loved this game.

100
Review by LEVEL (Czech Republic)
February 15, 2022

A perfect example of the performance of the PS5 and all its functions. Great gameplay and the music catches and won't let go until you get to the bottom of it all. But in the end, the final may surprise you unpleasantly.

90
Review by Slant Magazine
May 7, 2021

The more you learn about Selene across the game’s gripping campaign, the easier it is to relate to or agree with her observation that “I deserve to be here.”

90
Review by bbandit925 [user]
May 2, 2021

I originally hated this game.I thought when you died, you had to start from the beginning.Then I thought, what if I spend 12 hours on aI originally hated this game.I thought when you died, you had to start from the beginning.Then I thought, what if I spend 12 hours on a run and die to the last master, how much that would suck, or if the game would crash, while i was in late game.escpecially since i could not play any other game during a run.Many people are complaining about the inability to heal yourself.These people need to understand, JUST GO BACK TO YOUR SPACESHIP AND SLEEP!!!But then i learned that isn't true. Many upgrades you get are permanent and you unlock many shortcuts.Now I love this game.Its like a better version of the game Control.

80
Review by Angel_Sigh [user]
May 2, 2021

I've only been playing for a couple of days now. So bear in mind, as always with early user reviews, that NO-ONE, least of all me, is capableI've only been playing for a couple of days now. So bear in mind, as always with early user reviews, that NO-ONE, least of all me, is capable of giving a proper review of the entire game yet. That's what professional critic reviews are for.But I can give my early impressions - and I'm eager to do so:Firstly, it's an audiovisual feast. Demon's Souls is still probably the best looking game on PS5, but this really is a gorgeous game. It is dripping in atmosphere, it's smooth as butter at 60fps and whether the 4k is upscaled or not is irrelevant. It looks fabulous. I'm surprised at what a huge step-up this is for Housemarque in terms of production values - their games have always looked spectacular, but in a lo-fi, indie way. This is a massive leap forward.It's heavily influenced by the Alien films, Prometheus especially, as well as highbrow modern-sci-fi releases like Annihilation and Arrival, the dystopic real world in The Matrix, even Cronenberg's Existenz: you can see hints of all these movies in everything from the squiddy-like enemies, the alien civilisation and its architecture, the alien artifacts(that shimmer and reform when you shoot them, like a swarm of insects) dotted enigmatically around the place...the body-horror weapon augments that latch onto the player like parasites.It is stitched together from so many different influences, it'd be easy for it to come across as lacking in personality. But it's too atmospheric for that. And I said it's an audio-visual feast: the music and sound effects, ambient noises, are absolutely fantastic. There are constant unsettling chittering, humming noises to set you at unease, occasional Hans-Zimmer esque synth pulses, and subtle, elegant sound cues warn you of every enemy appearance(which is crucial, given how quickly you can lose your buff build-up if you're not careful and don't spot an enemy in your peripheral). It's just an enormous audiovisual accomplishment.W/r/t gameplay: it is a triple-A action game(maybe more of a double-A), but Housemarque have resisted the temptation to compromise on the responsiveness and speed of the controls. They haven't felt the need to animate the player to move like Nathan Drake thankfully. Gameplay comes first, and the action is incredibly precise and twitch-based, as you'd expect from the devs. It's honed - this was always going to be the game's strong point.BUT...it's a roguelike. And even though Hades was my game of 2020(by a distance) I still haven't made my mind up about this genre. Hades worked so brilliantly because it turned the most dispiriting part of a roguelike - the moment when you die and lose all that progress - into an outright positive. In that game, death meant more progress in the story, more secrets tumbling out, more cool stuff....and the game's length was so short that losing carried very little sting. I ended up completing Hades 160 times(you need to complete it ten times just to see the proper ending). I do not get that feeling from Returnal. It hasn't softened the edges at all. There are no attempts to make the sting of loss any less stinging. And I remember enjoying Dead Cells just as much as I'm enjoying this game, but I still never bothered finishing it. At some point, having to return right to the start of the game on every death became too much and the lure of permanent power-ups and 'leveling up' my character was too small.I haven't reached that point with Returnal...but I have met some dispiriting ends. Sudden deaths from enemies that seemed to come out of nowhere. And it's that kind of thing that'll decide whether you'll end up enjoying this game or not. I love hard games, but only if they have that something that keeps pulling me back. Sekiro is one of my favourite games of all-time. From Software are, imo, the greatest devs on the planet. But the structure of roguelikes is different from Soulslikes. You can get crushed in Souls, but you aren't thrown back to the start. You're pushed back to a bonfire and you lose your souls. But that's not so bitter a blow as to make you lose interest.I haven't lost interest at all in this game. I'm not saying that. I'm just warning anyone reading this that you will need to persist beyond the early stage of the game where each death can be sudden and it feels like you're making no progress at all. There comes a point where permanent power-ups make you feel a lot more confident, where you've managed to unlock enough things that persist beyond a single death. With roguelikes, it's a lot like the early stages of a Soulsborne game: you're weak, vulnerable and everything hits like a truck. And that's the point at which a lot of people just think 'f*** this, I'm out'. But Souls die-hards know that beyond that point lies the most satisfying gaming experience in the world. I don't know if Returnal will give me something like that yet, but I've seen enough of this mysterious, beautiful, butter-smooth twitch-action-game to keep pushing on.

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Game Information
Release Date April 30, 2021
Publisher Housemarque, Sony Interactive Entertainment
Total Rating 87%
Content Rated T (Teen)
Game Modes Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
Player Perspectives Third person
Genres Shooter
Themes Action, Science fiction
Platforms PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5