One of the many repercussions of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is that countless video games have suffered delays asdevelopers like Capcom deal with various setbacks. This also affected the launch of Sony and Microsoft’s next-generation consoles at the end of 2020, and to this day there are still not a lot of games available to showcase their technical achievements. Housemarque’sReturnalis one of the few PS5-exclusive titles to release thus far.
On the whole, many people who playedReturnalsay they have enjoyed it. The sci-fi roguelike shooter received largely positive reviews from news outlets upon its release this April, citing its atmosphere, clever use of the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers among other PS5 features, and more. However,Returnalwas review bombedon aggregate sites like Metacritic shortly thereafter, in-part because of valid criticisms such as its frequent crashes, bugs, and difficulty. While roguelikes are known for being difficult,Returnalreceived flak for its lack of a robust save feature that forced players to set aside hours for each session. A few months on, saving is still one ofReturnal’s biggest flaws.
Returnalfollows Selene, an astronaut in the distant future who crashes on an alien planet. Hostile creatures roam the land, and Selene finds that she returns to the moment when she first wakes up on the planet each time she dies - a justification for the roguelike mechanics that see players fighting through the same areas with different layouts whenever they attempt to escape.
This format isn’t new, and has become a well-worn trend in the modern gaming scene. Many roguelikes are created by indie developers, with popular titles including Supergiant Games’Hades, Edmund McMillen’sThe Binding of Isaac, and Derek Yu’sSpelunky.Returnalis one of the first mainstream AAA releases to take advantage of these genre conventions. In fact, soon after the game released,PlayStation announced it acquired Housemarqueto join its lineup of first-party developers.
WhereReturnalran into problems is that there is no option to save one’s game in the middle of a run. Each ofReturnal’s biomes is long, certainly much longer than a game likeHades, because it is also a massive AAA third-person shooter at heart. Although players are likely to die quickly and repeatedly early into their time withReturnal, eventually it becomes a time-consuming challenge to make it through everything on offer without being able to save and quit so they can return later. This was especially problematic early on when the game crashed or the PS5 auto-updated, potentially losing all of a user’s progress. Luckily, Housemarque is still releasingReturnalupdates that fix issues like trophies not unlocking.
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A new save feature has not been added to the game as of this writing, which is a potentially big turn-off for players who can’t set aside hours at a time just to attempt one run at the roguelike. That’s not for lack of trying, though. Saving has been in the works since May, butHousemarque ran into difficulty implementing a save feature. Nothing has been said of late to indicate it could be coming soon, but it would behoove the developer to add it as quickly as possible.
After all,Returnalis a great game by all accounts, one that has a mysterious story to dissect over untold hours. While other PS5 showcase titles likeRatchet and Clank: Rift Apartare contained experiences, one could theoretically keep replayingReturnalforever without seeing every permutation it has to offer. Having a better save feature would make it easier for a larger audience to give the game that time it deserves.
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