REVIEW – The first and biggest exclusive for Sony’s PlayStation 5 console this year is Returnal, and one of its key features is that you can’t save game states. So, if you die, you’ll be taken back to the very beginning of the game with everything you have lost.

Most reminiscent of the video game version of Tom Cruise’s sci-fi film On the Edge of Tomorrow is Housemarque’s Returnal, which stars Selene, a middle-aged female astronaut fighting various alien creatures on the planet Atropos

she dies again and again and again

only to have to start all over again from the same starting point every time. Selene will not emerge from this strange, resurrection time loop until she unravels the terrible secrets of the planet and her own past.

One life, many deaths

What this story means for us players is that we are dealing with a rogue-lite type of gameplay, so far only typical of low-budget, indie games, where every death you suffer throws you back to the beginning of the game, while all your weapons, resources, skills you have developed and maps of the area you have explored disappear – and the layout of the various rooms and areas you have explored changes when you start the adventure again. (But not the way each room is worked out.)

All of this means that even the difficulty of what is otherwise considered to be extremely brutal ‘Souls-like’ games (such as the PlayStation 5’s first exclusive title before it, Demon’s Souls) is a pittance compared to Returnal. No mercy here, we can’t save what can be saved.

“Is this the highly anticipated new generation title?!”

Why this PlayStation 5 may come as a shock to most gamers is the fact that we’re talking about the first really important title in Sony’s new generation of consoles. Importantly for Returnal, it was released six months after the PS5’s launch, making it the first game to really make the most of the console’s new capabilities, as well as highlighting its various extras as a kind of tech demo. In spring 2014, the same game was inFamous Second Son, a superhero game aimed specifically at the general public that highlighted the then PlayStation 4’s extra abilities, with difficulty levels tailored to the abilities of the average skilled and patient gamer.

Returnal, on the other hand, is a typically “niche” game, aimed at the hardcore, and even those within that hardcore who don’t mind being constantly teased about having to start all over again from the beginning if they die, with the already described conditions even more stringent than “Souls-like”.

Those who play these indie titles regularly won’t be bothered by this, as rogue-lite is a familiar genre there, but fans of Sony’s amazing-looking PlayStation exclusive titles are not used to this, but to games from the likes of Uncharted, inFamous, Last of Us, God of War and other familiar franchises with cinematic walkthroughs, scalable difficulty or moderate difficulty. We’re talking about two different target groups, and it was a bold move on Sony’s part to even in the most benevolent of circumstances, target gamers waiting for the first really important PlayStation 5 exclusive title at the masochistic rogue-lite fans into the rogue-lite crowd.

Aliens

Sony’s move is baffling if only because Returnal is otherwise a first-rate triple-A title in almost every other respect. The game, making the most of the PlayStation 5’s capabilities, offers unparalleled visuals that have never been seen in any console game before. The flora and fauna of a planet that threatens death around every corner is packed with pin-sharp graphics and eye-catching effects that make the most of 4K TVs, and there’s no shortage of ray tracing and 60 fps frame rates. Even on the new generation of games, this is currently unparalleled, as it’s rare to find a game that takes advantage of ray tracing, and even rarer to find one that does it all at 60 fps.

But 60 fps is what we need: thanks to the pinpoint action game controls, the constantly fast-paced gameplay, which often requires tactical sense, really only depends on our relfexes whether the aggressive alien creatures will take Selene’s life and we will be sent back to the beginning of the game, or whether we will survive the encounter and win.

Finally, in terms of the gameplay experience, Returnal makes the most of DualSense, the PlayStation 5’s controller: every punch, shot, bump, shake and raindrop will feel pretty much as if it were happening to you.

Selene’s personal nightmarish journey

Returnal also differs from the usual cinematic Sony PlayStation titles in that it’s not a multi-character, complex storyline adventure or horror story, but rather a personal nightmarish journey of Selene. There’s no exposition, no long segues, no dialogue or monologues, just video-clip-like visions of images, often flashing at lightning speed, of the astronaut Selene’s past.
Selene occasionally finds her own corpse and the voice messages she left behind, trying to decipher what happened to her, as well as the written messages left behind on the planet by the alien beings who lived there. The story is interesting and unique, but it unfolds gradually – provided the player has the patience to keep restarting the game and reach the end of the story.

I only have one nervous system, thank you!

With this exclamation, I stop the game every night because I often try in vain to use the tactic of always teleporting back to Selene’s ruined spaceship and resting there to recharge my batteries, because the game closes the door of the room behind me with an unexpected pull, and the bloodthirsty aliens suddenly come at me in hordes. Even though it’s not impossible to win (not even with the great controls and clunky AI), a few minor glitches and I’m back to square one.

But then I always come back the next night, because Returnal is addictive, beautiful and a real adrenaline pump – even if I often want to slam the controller to the ground after every death. But now I’m asking for a traditional triple-A Sony PlayStation exclusive for the new generation of consoles – it’s about time…

-Zardoz-

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Housemarque

Genre: Sci-fi TPS

Release date: April 30, 2021