At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Housemarque, now part of Sony Interactive Entertainment (or PlayStation Studios), announced that Returnal, a PlayStation 5-exclusive, was unplayable for nearly the first half of its development!

Sony had already called the game a “mega hit” before acquiring the Finnish studio. Since then, Returnal has won several awards, with one of the most common criticisms being that you couldn’t save during loops (i.e. you either played through or started the round from the beginning). IGN reported how challenging it was for Housemarque to develop a game that had previously seen games of much smaller size and scale.

Returnal director Harry Krueger said that using Unreal Engine 4 was a leap of faith for them, as the developers had to grow (or build) wings as they went down. He says it’s no exaggeration that Returnal was not in a playable state for nearly half of the development cycle. “We were learning how to use the engine. We were breaking things, creating dependencies that we didn’t understand… we were just learning as we went,” Krueger said.

He added that Returnal was somewhat unintentionally difficult because they were “trying to make a 3D game feel as simple as a 2D game.” But the multitasking (shooting and doing other things simultaneously) made the gameplay difficult. That’s why we fell from ledges or died from cheap shots because we were trying to hit the opponents all the time. He thinks the aim assist should have been more substantial. Regardless, it all came together in the end, and Housemarque could punch above its weight, which allowed Sony to release a successful game, which seems to have helped the Finns a lot, which may have led to their acquisition.

Self-taught learning from your own mistakes and experiences is not a bad idea, but it is a more artistically helpful approach. A slightly different mindset is needed for game development.

Source: PSL