Returnal is no joke, at least for me and my lack of run-and-gun-action-game proficiency. The fact that it features randomized map configurations doesn’t do it or me any favors. At times, it can be so frustrating that I am overcome by an incontrollable fit of profanity. Returnal can — and will — feel like it is taunting you. Even though you will eventually learn the rules of its world, there will be moments when it feels like it is perhaps no longer following those rules just to make your blood boil.
And yet, Returnal is also one of the best games I have played since Elden Ring, and even though I might never actually beat it (much like Elden Ring), I friggin’ love this game.
If you are unfamiliar with developer Housemarque’s PS5-exclusive roguelike (which will likely make its way to PC at some point, I think it’s safe to assume), the basic gist is that you play as a cosmonaut named Selene who crash lands on a mysterious alien planet. You must fight your way through hostile environments to uncover pieces of Returnal‘s cryptic story, and to also survive. With each death, you respawn at the moment of the crash and must repeat the process, unlocking better weapons and equipment and strengthening Selene’s defenses so you can do it all over again.
If you are not a fan of roguelikes, Returnal will more than likely not be for you. It can be quite infuriating beefing up Selene and making your way to a boss fight, only to get a crappy dice role along the way. You could wind up in an OP room full of base-level enemies, get overwhelmed, and die stupidly, only to have to then start all over from scratch. This can be especially tiresome because, although each room has the same layout each time you come across it, the location of that room will never be the same. So when all you want to do is beeline to the boss to get another crack at toppling it, you have no choice but to play through the random roll and progress until you happen upon that boss’s lair.
If you happen upon it, that is.
Since the levels are randomized with each run — and so is the gear you can find along the way — you are not always guaranteed to even make it to the boss if you roll an especially grueling instance. And that will no doubt piss a lot of people off and turn a good number away.
I must admit, I have been struggling with the first dungeon for several days now, only egged on by just how tight the controls are and how truly awesome Returnal feels to play. I love the feel enough, in fact, to keep chipping away at the rest of this aneurism simulator.
The thing is, the more I keep subjecting myself to its punishment, the better I get at playing it. And this is a testament to Returnal‘s structure, I think. Little by little, through purely masochistic gluttony, I am improving. So there is hope that perhaps in a year or two, I might actually make it to the second biome. And that gives me hope that perhaps, before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I might eventually see credits roll.
But it is just as likely that, for as great as Returnal truly is, it might just be one of the best video games that I’ll never beat.
