Returnal is a 2021 third-person shooter game created by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. A version for Windows, developed by Climax Studios, was released on February 15, 2023. The game follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut who lands on the planet Atropos to investigate the mysterious "White Shadow" signal and becomes trapped in a time loop. The gameplay includes bullet hell, third-person shooter, and roguelike features.

Returnal received mostly positive reviews from critics for its visuals, combat, sound design, and technical quality. However, some critics had mixed feelings about its difficulty and roguelike elements. The game won several awards, including Best Game at the 18th British Academy Games Awards. By February 2022, it had sold 866,000 copies. A spiritual successor, Saros, is set to release in 2026.

Gameplay

Returnal is a video game played from a third-person perspective, combining elements of action shooting and a style of gameplay known as roguelike, which often includes challenges that reset after failure. It belongs to the psychological horror genre, which focuses on creating suspenseful and frightening experiences. Set in a futuristic science fiction world, players control Selene Vassos (Jane Perry), a space pilot wearing a special suit and using advanced weapons. She becomes trapped on the alien planet Atropos and is forced to repeat the same events repeatedly after each death. Each time Selene dies, she is brought back to the start of the game’s first half, which is divided into three distinct environments.

Selene can move quickly by dashing and later unlock a grappling hook to jump to specific points in a room. Alien enemies attack with colorful, geometric patterns of energy, fireballs, and lasers arranged in shapes like spirals, squares, and spheres, requiring players to plan their movements carefully. Players can collect a range of weapons, from a simple pistol to a powerful Electropylon Driver. Each weapon has unique features that can be improved to increase their effectiveness. Selene also has a melee weapon for fighting enemies, breaking crystal-like objects that provide resources, or destroying barriers.

An update called Ascension adds online cooperative multiplayer, allowing two players to complete the game’s story together.

Plot

Selene Vassos, a pilot and explorer for ASTRA Corporation, disobeys orders and lands on the restricted planet Atropos to investigate a mysterious signal she calls the "White Shadow." The signal feels familiar to her. When she arrives, her ship, the Helios, crashes after suffering serious damage. Selene cannot contact ASTRA, so she explores the planet. She is surprised to find the bodies of herself scattered around. She discovers that every time she dies, time repeats, returning her to the moment of the crash. The planet changes with each loop, and Selene begins having strong visions.

Determined to find the source of the White Shadow, Selene continues exploring. She fights dangerous alien creatures and collects technology left behind by an ancient alien civilization that once lived on Atropos. As she follows the signal, Selene finds a replica of her childhood home. Each time she enters it, she remembers old memories and sees an astronaut wearing an old space suit. Eventually, Selene learns that she used an alien weapon to accidentally destroy her own ship, causing her to be stranded on Atropos.

After finding the source of the White Shadow, ASTRA receives Selene’s distress call and sends a rescue ship. Selene returns to Earth but later dies of old age, only to wake up again on Atropos, back at the crash site. Frustrated, she continues exploring. Her search leads her to an underwater area where she finds a replica of an old car.

At the bottom of the abyss, Selene encounters a large, octopus-like alien creature. She sees a vision of a middle-aged woman who looks like Selene driving a car with a young child in the back. The woman swerves to avoid an astronaut on the road, causing the car to crash into a lake. The woman tries to save the child but is pulled out of the car by dark, cloud-like tentacles. A view from below the lake’s surface is shown, with the same tentacles pulling the viewer deeper into the water.

If the player collects six items called "Sunface Fragments" after the game ends, Selene can return home and find a set of car keys. She then opens the car and faces a pregnant humanoid creature in a wheelchair. Selene fights the creature and is taken back to the car crash scene from the astronaut’s perspective. This suggests Selene is the astronaut the driver tried to avoid. Selene then swims to the surface, shouting the name "Helios" as she does.

Development

Returnal was created by the Finnish company Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game took more than four years to develop. It uses the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller and Tempest Engine to support features like touch feedback, 3D sound, and real-time ray tracing, which improve the player's experience. The PlayStation 5's powerful processor and custom solid-state drive allow the game to load quickly and include many enemies, visual effects, and objects in gameplay. The game runs at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second. Returnal's original resolution is about 1080p. The developers used a technique called temporal upsampling to reach 1440p and another method called checkerboard rendering to achieve 4K. The game also includes an original score composed mainly by Bobby Krlic.

The game's visual style depends on many effects the team created themselves as additions to Unreal Engine. These effects include particle systems and volumetric rendering.

Returnal was first shown during Sony's PlayStation 5 reveal stream on June 11, 2020. It was made only for the PlayStation 5. The game was originally planned for release on March 19, 2021. On January 28, 2021, the release date was moved to April 30, 2021. On March 25, 2021, it was announced that the game had gone gold, meaning it was ready for production. A free update called Ascension, which adds a cooperative multiplayer mode and an endless mode named the Tower of Sisyphus, was released on March 22, 2022. On December 8, 2022, at The Game Awards 2022, it was announced that the game would be released for PC in early 2023. The PC version came out on February 15, 2023.

Reception

The game Returnal received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, as reported by the review website Metacritic.

In a review for IGN, Mitchell Saltzman praised how the gameplay connected with the story, noting that it made the main character, Selene, "an interesting protagonist who is caught in a strange, repeating but different situation." Saltzman criticized the need to replay sections to improve weapon skills, calling the game "ridiculously difficult" and stating that success required spending a lot of time leveling up. In a review for The Guardian, Keza MacDonald gave the game a positive review, highlighting its challenging difficulty, satisfying combat, and engaging gameplay. She also praised the game's visuals and sound design, writing that "The planet looks and sounds extraordinary, with each new area appearing as a unique biotechnological nightmare."

The game's roguelike gameplay, which requires players to restart levels after dying, has divided opinions. Some players criticized the lack of a save feature, while critics had mixed reactions. Jon Bailes of GamesRadar+ explained that the absence of a save feature was a deliberate choice meant to reflect the game's themes about death. He wrote, "Selene's difficult journey matched my own attempts to finish the game. The lack of a save feature and limited activities added to the emotional experience."

Chris Tapsell of Eurogamer noted that checkpoints only work once per game session, saying players should be careful when spending time on a run. He also shared an experience where an automatic update on his PlayStation 5 caused him to lose progress on a run. In response to player and reviewer complaints about the save system, the game's developer, Housemarque, said they were working on solutions but had not decided how to implement a save feature. In October 2021, Housemarque released Update 2.0, which allows players to "suspend cycle" to save their progress during a run.

In its first week of sale in Japan, Returnal sold 6,573 physical copies and ranked as the 15th-best-selling retail game in the country. In the United Kingdom, the game debuted at number 2 on the sales charts for the week ending May 1, 2021. As of February 2022, the game had sold 866,000 copies (with 1 million units shipped globally).