Lots of games have tried to make bullet hell work in a 3D game, but few succeed quite like Returnal does its patterns are complex and meticulous, making full use of the 3D space without ever letting the camera get in the way of the full view you need to effectively dodge. There’s even a neat little Metroid-like touch, with the discovery of alien technology (which persists through deaths, thankfully) like a grappling hook that expand the exploratory possibilities of future cycles, even through familiar locations.īoss fights the energy that drives regular combat encounters to even higher levels, with the sort of mesmerising bullet hell patterns that you’d expect to see in a Cave shooter. There’s a light platforming touch, with most rooms having some sort navigational puzzle that can double as protection or an escape route in a fight. With each new “cycle” comes a new level layout, new combinations of different enemies and rooms-each individually familiar after you’ve seen them the first time, but combining in ways that keep things dynamic and unpredictable. Each fight is a rush, always keeping you on your toes and letting pinpoint accuracy and awareness of your surroundings be the things that let you triumph. Using the level geometry to your advantage becomes core, both for cover and for mobility, as you weave through enemy bullet onslaughts and try to stay alive. Returnal brings that to a new extreme, with the added dimension bringing a new dynamic. Housemarque is unrivalled when it comes to building action that is chaotic and frenzied, but also surgical in its precision the sort of thing that you can easily jump into, but spend a long time mastering.
This lays the groundwork for an incredible third-person shooter. With no other chance to escape, delving into Atropos’ many secrets-and her own lost memories-through death after death is her only way out. If the unsettling atmosphere and swarms of deadly creatures aren’t enough, it’s also a place that’s seemingly caught in a time loop: whenever Selene dies, she wakes up again at the moment of her crash, with a planet that’s seemingly reconfigured itself. You play as Selene, a spacefaring scout who crash-lands on a hostile alien planet while following a strange broadcast called “White Shadow”. But what makes Returnal‘s strengths work as well as they is how meticulous and finely crafted they are, which is at direct odds with the unpredictability and deliberate unfairness that makes a roguelike tick. It’s a remarkable game in so many ways: full of the sort of frantic yet precise action that Housemarque is unrivalled at creating, but on a whole new level of scale and ambition, with an intriguing Alien-esque setting, a dose of psychological horror, and some of the best boss fights I’ve ever seen in a videogame. Returnal should not be a roguelike, and I say this as someone who rather enjoys that genre.
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