Returnal

 PC
User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 180 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 102 out of 180
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 180
  3. Negative: 47 out of 180

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  1. Pickle
    Feb 19, 2023
    5
    I feel as if reviews are divided in these two categories… One being the game’s quality and the other being a review that’s mainly focused in describing the experience you had with the game, You know?

    Personally if I were to review the game based on its quality, it’s a great game, the graphics, the gameplay, the sound design, everything about it is top notch, the game’s atmospheric and    I feel as if reviews are divided in these two categories… One being the game’s quality and the other being a review that’s mainly focused in describing the experience you had with the game, You know?

    Personally if I were to review the game based on its quality, it’s a great game, the graphics, the gameplay, the sound design, everything about it is top notch, the game’s atmospheric and the narrative ambiguous but mysterious enough that you’re engaged with it constantly, then the gameplay is very arcadey and fun, something that’s completely subversive compared to contemporary story driven titles that aim to give more “weight” to the character at the cost of control responsiveness.

    Even then though my actual experience was mediocre at best, initially I loved the game, and then I got pummelled time and time again up until I couldn’t get past the first biome of five (I’ve heard) . This kind of experience might be really appealing to people who adore challenge, but personally I felt frustrated and after a while, feeling quite bored towards the game, I just feel as if I’m going to take a break from the whole thing and move on to other games; these really demanding and challenging titles might’ve been fine when I was a kid and in a few cases I had nothing more than games to keep me entertained, but now I feel like they’re a bit of a loss of time, no offense to those who like the “climbing” or accomplishment of a game challenge, but to me I just don’t have it in me anymore, I lack the determination, time, and persistence to overcome the challenges these titles throw at me, instead I see those challenges as hinder and a blockade in what I’m actually interested in experiencing in a game, which is mainly its story, in conjunction with its gameplay.    … Expand
  2. vgmkyle
    Feb 16, 2023
    7
    Still not a great game, but it beats the bricks off the outdated PS5 version. The appeal behind Returnal will always allude me because I've simply played 10x better in the Science fiction department.
  3. Pmstz
    Feb 17, 2023
    7
    nice game
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
  4. Soracifer88
    Feb 22, 2023
    6
    With great regret I have to admit that I am dissatisfied with my experience with Returnal, my complaints are not about the performance (which I'm sure will be fixed) but the core of the gameplay... I'm a huge fan of Roguelikes I've completed a lot and I've been waiting so much for this sony exclusive to arrive on pc... i was promised a triple A roguelike experience with a high level ofWith great regret I have to admit that I am dissatisfied with my experience with Returnal, my complaints are not about the performance (which I'm sure will be fixed) but the core of the gameplay... I'm a huge fan of Roguelikes I've completed a lot and I've been waiting so much for this sony exclusive to arrive on pc... i was promised a triple A roguelike experience with a high level of challenge, instead i was presented with a very easy game... i finished the game on my second run in just 8 hours... the game is extremely generous in giving you weapons, objects, passive powerups but above all very generous with the heal item... all this combined with a practically always available dodge that makes you completely invincible, bring down the level of challenge very low.
    But the biggest problem with this game is the lack of what makes roguelikes replayable to death.... in this game you can't create any builds, this makes all runs identical, there are no abilities that change your dash, jump, meele or other things there is just some pretty straightfoward bonus and malus stat... the only different thing that changes the gameplay experience are the weapons, but the game itself is constantly throwing you so much that you can try almost all the weapons and variants in a couple of run and you'll just end up holding only the most powerful one momentarily... build creation and variety is the key to any good roguelike this kills replay value completely.
    Add in a rather cryptic story with a not particularly exciting protagonist and we end up with a disappointing experience.

    To recap:
    pros:
    +Visually satisfying
    +great audio
    +good controls and fast base gameplay

    with
    -very low level of difficulty
    -total lack of builds and therefore of any replayability typical of roguelikes
    -lack of balancement in the weapon (some are very strong and overpower some very bad and weak)
    - cryptic story

    In general enjoyable but not worth the 60 dollars it asks for. games like Enter the gungeon, risk of rain2 etc are definitely superior    … Expand
  5. petriAND
    Feb 20, 2023
    7
    Gameplay - 8.5
    Visuals - 7.5
    Story - 5 Sound - 8.5 Fun - 7.5 ------------------- 7.4 The concept is spot on for a roguelike game, shame it has a cryptic story full of symbolism and the ending really disappointed me. The sound in this game is really good, and the visuals are good overall. Gameplay, as the sound, is the strong point of this game, animations are amazing, is fun and    Gameplay - 8.5
    Visuals - 7.5
    Story - 5
    Sound - 8.5
    Fun - 7.5
    -------------------
    7.4

    The concept is spot on for a roguelike game, shame it has a cryptic story full of symbolism and the ending really disappointed me. The sound in this game is really good, and the visuals are good overall. Gameplay, as the sound, is the strong point of this game, animations are amazing, is fun and the shooting feels pretty good. Another bad thing about this game is optimization, is full of stutters at launch.    … Expand
  6. Phpower
    Mar 31, 2023
    5
    Chato,repetitvo, sem noçao o que a sony fez, morreu começa tudo denovo muito sem graça,nao recomendo!
  7. fabi0pereira
    Aug 6, 2023
    5
    Well this could be great game, but some dev choices ruined.
    And I'm not talking about the rogue thing but the randomization of everything.
    Your run/experience depending on lucky is terrible.
  8. watchm824
    Sep 8, 2023
    7
    Not a bad game. But I couldn't finish game. At some point I ran out of patience. The inability to fully save game progress finally broke my desire to play more.
  9. piglordofallham
    Sep 2, 2023
    6
    A perfectly good third-person action game dragged down by the current fads of rogue-lite and randomized level generation. Returnal is certainly a good enough arcade game made by developer veterans of such titles in the genre, but what they've done here is most assuredly a misguided attempt at adding complexity for no actual reason. Don't get me wrong, the main gameplay loop for ReturnalA perfectly good third-person action game dragged down by the current fads of rogue-lite and randomized level generation. Returnal is certainly a good enough arcade game made by developer veterans of such titles in the genre, but what they've done here is most assuredly a misguided attempt at adding complexity for no actual reason. Don't get me wrong, the main gameplay loop for Returnal is quite good, quite good indeed. Combined with the absolutely mesmerizingly smooth controls, you'd be mistaken for thinking its a stellar title, but the cracks do begin to become more visible the longer you play.

    The game is padded left and right with recycled areas, recycled weapons, as well as recycled enemies. Its actually very frustrating that for all the unique items or equipment you'll find, you need a wiki page in order to understand what all of them actually do. While the first boss isn't too ridiculous, the difficulty curve quickly ramps up to the point where the enjoyability on offer is seemingly more catered to a niche crowd that frankly doesn't exist on the Sony Playstation platform. This can easily be ascertained by looking into the embarrassingly low amount of individuals that ever even speed-ran Returnal.

    Now lets talk story. The story is hogwash. A silly, sub-optimal droning, overtly emotional, and insultingly vapid story about child abuse or trauma or a bad relationship with a parental figure, or whatever, its not important at all. It should've been swept aside entirely and was an utter waste of time for the voice-actress, writing team, and whoever approved such a stupid premise for the entire backdrop for the game. What would've been wrong with a science-fiction oriented action shooter with arcade-like as well as rogue-lite elements? I don't know, I guess it might've sold less perhaps?
    Every moment where the game has to re-show you the same cinematic for the crash playing out after death, every time you interact with a fabricator, every time you encounter a boss only serve to drag out what is ostensibly a extremely short game padded out with stupidly large health bars, bad luck rng meant to frustrate you and a very strange attempt at incentivizing gambling for some reason.

    Lets talk about.. parasites. One of the moronic concepts is a system where parasites, some items and even stuff you can gather in the environment cause both good or bad effects or conditions that have to be overcome in order to remove a de-buff or whatever. Guess what, if something is basically useless or has too many negative effects or isn't even worth using for its positive potential- do you know what players are going to do? They'll just- skip- it. I don't care if some parasite does something good for thirty seconds only to cause me to lose health when I pick up anything else. That's inane and positively not worth the time to use or engage with a system that is actively screwing you over while pretending its helping you. Watch a speedrun because you'll find that they also skip all of the worthless bad stuff masquerading as something slightly good too.

    Personally, I got past the second boss and got really bored, even with the fantastic control scheme. It just wasn't offering me a good enough plot to really engage with the title. Plus the character design is so awful Sony gave players two free suits that cover up her face! Ouch Sony that's pretty harsh. The soundtrack is decent, but a bit too repetitive, and the game is pretty repetitive too now that I think about it. Its a real shame that the shockwave generated by content like FromSoft's Dark Souls still hasn't worn off. If it had by now, maybe Returnal could've stood on its own two feet as a unique sci-fi shooter as opposed to a weird blur as its swallowed up by the cycle of time itself.

    Regarding performance, not much has changed since the February release. Ray-tracing performance is really still too demanding on 2000 series even the higher end GPU's. The other issues are the odd framerate fluttering, micro-stutter regardless of high or epic graphics settings, which in such a demanding game where reactions count for everything is absolutely not acceptable in this day and age. To my knowledge the original Playstation 5 release also had terrible performance problems, but the fact that cycle suspending wasn't even an option when it first came out is pretty egregious. I guess ultimately I wouldn't spend 70 USD on a broken port that barely improves over the original PS5 release.    … Expand
  10. bokarsh-z
    Feb 27, 2023
    5
    =========
    only worth 40 dollar
    =========
    - 10 - 20 hour long.

    -very repetitive rogue-like fun fast arcady 3rd person shooter.

    -bad pc port game have alot of errors spacialy when u use ray-tracing.

    -bad disappointment true ending, little enemies type and rare strong enemy kills u only 1-2 hit harder than main bosses.

    -good atmosphere, good main bosses and tower.

Awards & Rankings

26
#26 Best PC Game of 2023
28
#28 Most Discussed PC Game of 2023

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 45 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 42 out of 45
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 45
  3. Negative: 0 out of 45
  1. GameSpace
    Apr 14, 2026
    80
    Returnal is the first game in a long time to bring back that sense of excitement for gaming for me. When you wake up in the morning, you can't wait to jump into the game for a couple of hours. The ability to pause a run and save your progress at any moment intensifies that feeling threefold. After all, whenever you get the chance, you can fire up Returnal again and enjoy the shooting and exploring the world for an hour, two hours, or even the whole evening, all while burning with frustration over yet another ridiculous defeat. I’m even a little upset that I didn’t play it sooner.
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  2. XGN
    May 1, 2023
    95
    The PC-port of Returnal fixes one of the biggest issues of the Playstation-version; not being able to safely quit the game without losing progress. In keeps its smooth combat, even with a mouse and keyboard and allows the graphics too be even better on modern hardware. An amazing roguelike with just a few minor complaints.
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  3. Movies Games and Tech
    Mar 27, 2023
    80
    Returnal is an interesting game and for those who want a roguelike that keeps the story hidden behind a challenging gameplay loop, this is a wonderful place to start. Astropos is full of mystery and danger but with enough runs, any player has the ability to master the tight combat offered up here.
    Read full review
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