Developer Housemarque has made admirable use of some of the novel features of Sony's DualSense controller, including the two-stage trigger for aiming, haptic feedback to quickly convey key information, and the built-in speaker to create a multidimensional soundscape. The controls are tight and the weapons feel gratifyingly powerful. It all hinges on the action, though, which most players will likely either love or hate. These are the dangling carrots that will keep dedicated players going, even after multiple deaths without any progress. Assuming you make it a little further each time, you'll discover new items and strategies that you'll be able to use going forward, and you'll be rewarded with tantalizing bits of story - such as alien scripts that must be translated, or a glimpse of Selene's pre-mission life - that slowly but surely reveal what everything means. The whole premise of the game is to fight to the bitter end, go down with your finger firmly on the trigger, and then wake up and do it all over again - hopefully a little better. Returnal assumes players understand (or perhaps teaches players the value of) tenacity, and that before you can claim a satisfying victory, you must first fail. This fast-paced action adventure isn't for the faint of heart, but it rewards the player's perseverance toward solving what's happening on this mysterious planet. But achieving objectives takes practice and skill, as well as a hard-won understanding of how the game's many consumables, boon-bestowing alien parasites, and gear can be used to your advantage to increase the odds of success during challenging battles.

Eventually, she'll find her way to specific objectives, such as powerful bosses or locations that will help progress the story or reward her with specific bits of gear that won't disappear on respawn, such as a red energy blade that can cut through barriers to reveal hidden areas. All she's left with is the knowledge of what she's already experienced, which, hopefully, will be enough for her to make it a little further and learn a bit more of this strange world's secrets before she dies again.

Each time she ventures out, the world rearranges itself, and each time she's killed and wakes up, she realizes she's lost virtually all of the progress she's made - her collected guns, weapon proficiency, and resources gone. She's soon attacked - and killed - by some very aggressive aliens, only to wake up next to her ship unscathed and find the world around her has shifted and shuffled. Selene, an astronaut from Earth, crash-lands on this planet, finding herself lost amid sprawling, ancient ruins. RETURNAL is a third-person shooter set on a mysterious alien world where it's seemingly impossible to permanently die.

Returnal ps5 reviews