Live, Die, Defeat

After a strong PS5 launch line-up including Spiderman: Miles Morales (review here) and Demon’s Souls, we’ve been waiting on a fresh Playstation exclusive to really showcase the new console’s talents.

A hellish hybrid of bullet-hell shooter and psychological horror with roguelike sensibilities, Returnal is equal parts exciting, excruciating and essential for any PS5 owner.

Read on to find out why…

 

 

Story

Finnish developer Housemarque has been wowing gamers with visually arresting shooters since the days of the PC – this is the first time their anarchic action has a AAA story to match.

We find intrepid space explorer Selene Vassos, obsessed with discovering the source of a signal emanating from uncharted planet Atropos.

Crash-landing upon entry to Atropos’ atmosphere and with communication back to ASTRA Corp. bosses severed, Selene ventures forth on this alien land and stumbles across an atrophied corpse…her own.

Picking up ‘her’ service weapon to defend against hostile natives, she explores the planet’s various biomes, picking up past audio logs, slowly realising she’s trapped in an endless cycle of death.

Reappearing back on her ship Helios every time she dies – Groundhog day-style – in each loop she slowly learns more about Atropos’ tragic downfall, as well as her reasons for being trapped here…

With the slow-burn story is fundamentally tied to the gameplay (and with spooky first-person sequences for bigger plot reveals), Returnal reveals its true motives over the course of several runs, drip-feeding surprises and power-ups in equal measure.

 

 

 

Gameplay

One of Housemarque’s most impressive feats is to distill the core elements of their series of successful shooters – combos, an array of enemies and strategic shooting – and apply it so adeptly to a third-person environment.

Selene’s nimble controls enable you to both navigate the dilapidated ruins of Atropos and contend with its projectile spitting creatures,

Equally clever are the roguelike trappings of both persistent upgrades to weapons, moves and abilities that carry over and make subsequent runs more survivable.

There are also parasites, creatures that latch onto your suit and can provide benefits – extra firepower, more health, but also weaken the protagonist meaningfully, requiring specific challenges to be completed in order to remove malfunctions to the suit.

The risk/reward mechanic heightens every single encounter – do you venture deeper to be more equipped for the powerful bosses, or rush through the level in order to get that bit further?

 

 

Interesting online gameplay mechanics also enable players to avenge the deaths of other Returnal players, as well as deposit valuable currency to make their subsequent runs easier.

This Death Stranding-inspired addition makes the lonely posthumous treks that bit easier – with Returnal definitely delivering that additive ‘one more run’ behaviour so common to this genre.

And you’ll need those runs, as Returnal is punishingly hard, with players needing every ounce of skill (and often luck) to survive a constantly changing environment.

Enemy placement differs, level layouts are familiar and yet shifting through every run, meaning that whilst you’re improving the game is keeping one step ahead at every turn…

This is in concert with some of the best implementation of the Dualsense controller throughout – the adaptive triggers enabling alternative firing modes and giving audio cues at every turn, and vibrating along with both directional blasts of fire beside you or the faint patter of rain on your suit.

Sounds gimmicky, but it’s an incredibly assured implementation that lends confidence to a true generational leap in terms of gaming experience.

However, some entirely confusing decisions do mar the sheen on the wonder of Returnal – high on the list is the inability to save.

Yes, every run – which can easily last a couple of hours – takes you back to the beginning when you die, with no checkpoints or ways to save progress.

Sounds familiar for roguelike fans, but when it’s the quirks of the PS5 randomly turning off, an occasional bug in the game or your desire to play something else even briefly, you could stand to lose that perfect loadout and it is immensely frustrating.

Patches have been quickly rolled out to try and stomp some errors, and there are in-world mechanics to discover which mitigate and indicate the lack of saves as a design decision, but those new to the world of dying to get ahead could bounce off due to the sheer challenge.

In a world where there are entire genres dedicated to telling players to ‘get good’, it’s very likely that Returnal’s attractive packaging could confound those expecting more traditional third-person hand holding…something to bear in mind.

 

 

Graphics

Returnal is an undisputed visual powerhouse for the Playstation 5.

The biomes of Atropos are all distinctive, and the combination of incredibly dense flora and fauna, and these alien art-deco environments create a wondrous sense of scale and discovery in each moment.

The trademark flourish that is the Housemarque calling card from everything from Resogun to Nex Machina are a mainstay, with Returnal acting as a technical showcase of (a near-steady) 60 frames per second and ray-tracing, with no break in the pulse-pounding action.

Enter a room with deadly foes and the game quickly shifts to a pyrotechnic wonder, with plasma particles and rocks exploding around you as you take aim and hammer these semi-destructible environments.

Shards of light dapple through the architecture, old doors leave motes of dust through the air upon opening after centuries, and every aspect of the world is steeped in both the feel of a bold alien world and justifying Returnal’s credentials as a triple-A experience…production values are front-and-centre, with Housemarque firing on all cylinders.

Another wonder is the load-times, where portals can transplant the player miles across the map in a literal second, Selene disintegrating into a pile of atoms with a next-gen sheen.

Layer in the creepy first-person segments which take Selene into her old house and lend that sense of dread to the otherwise mundane, and you have something thoroughly unique.

 

Audio

The final piece of the psychological horror puzzle, Returnal truly shines with regards to sound design.

In addition to being an integral part of the combat experience – positional audio can enable you to quickly whip around and defeat sneaky enemies – the disorienting nature of the game extends to its brooding and discordant soundtrack.

Composed by Bobby Krlic, it adds to the magnificent sense of expanse to Returnal’s environments, with almost Gothic and orchestral undertones throughout.

Without spoiling anything, the marriage of Returnal’s audio, visuals and gameplay reaches a crescendo at the dizzying summit of a spiraling tower, currently standing as one of CRISP’s most memorable gaming events in 2021.

Weapons are equally as alien, eschewing ‘space marine’ gun tropes for devices more likely to be found in a David Cronenburg movie, with striking percussive notes to match.

Returnal definitely matches the visuals and gameplay with an audio accompaniment that will have you peeking out from behind the sofa…to click ‘download’ on Spotify.

 

Verdict

Brilliantly satisfying in its brutality, Returnal is a killer app for the PS5.

It leverages all of the next-gen features of Sony’s new console to deliver something refreshingly new, terrifying the player through creeping fear (over both its enemies and death itself) over gore, and yet retains Housemarque’s refined twitch-shooter NDA throughout.

Returnal is a unique experience that might prove divisive in its difficulty but will unify in the knowledge that it’s a phenomenal title for brave gamers up to the challenge.