Live, die, repeat.
For a noob, such as myself, this is very much the way every game plays out.
However, in this interesting title from Housemarque, you play as Selene, who after crashing landing in her spaceship, gets stranded on an alien planet. The begins a journey on Atropos which brings numerous questions and exciting revelations. And deaths.
Lots of deaths.
The story is communicated slice-by-slice over time as you work through different ‘biomes’, the completion of each rewards you with overlapping pieces of narrative, adding one element to a larger puzzle that’s a pleasure to work out.
It’s tougher than a bag of old leather boots left out in the sun, but as break from the familiar major studio licenses and variants on the same themes, Returnal is a challenge worth undertaking.
Bobby Krlic (Midsommar), provides a haunting backdrop to a visually arresting experience, you could be forgiven for dying AGAIN as you get distracted by plumes of light in the darkness, or the level of detail crammed into your enemies...of which there are many.
Frustrations have been made clear about the limited save points and a reliance on a dodgy ‘rest mode’ in bringing progression to an abrupt halt.
There is also the sticky point of a 79Eur price tag, which for many, even on an next-gen console is a touch on the pricey side. For a game that has a wealth of hours tucked away and a premise that needs to be rewarded, this argument seems to be a bit of a moot point, especially given that oodles of dosh is spent on micro-transactions and lootbox mentality runs rife.
Returnal is, then, not unlike an art-house film version of sci-fi, think of the Clooney starring Solaris, as opposed to the Willis/Affleck-geddons of yore.
Returnal is available now on PS5 via Housemarque.
