Returnal (Housemarque) [PS5, PC]

  • Thread starter Deleted member 7537
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Gamersyde has a video. They seem to have received the final game. Motion blur is super grainy looking and it's applied liberally. Also has that common low poly and flatly lit UE4 look.
 
Preview of the games, people like the game a true Housemarque games. I like Housemarque games but no PS5 :( They played 5 hours of the game.

https://www.ign.com/articles/returnal-the-final-preview

It’s this sort of bullet-hell pedigree and heritage that Housemarque made its name with, combined with the studio bringing story to the forefront like never before that has me so excited to play more Returnal and see where on Atropos it’s going. Early on, it appears to be combining the satisfying loop of action and discovery that Hades offered with every new run married with a striking space-marine aesthetic. The inspirations and influences are clear to see, but Returnal is still very much a Housemarque game at its core, and that’s what has me wanting to play and indeed die, again and again.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1385020830304727043

https://twitter.com/x/status/1385060324202586118


https://twitter.com/x/status/1385021153371119618

hardcore Gamer said:
Housemarque’s reputation for delivering stellar PlayStation titles means there’s a lot of pressure on Returnal. Though we’ve only gotten to experience two of the game’s biomes, both the Overgrown Ruins and the Crimson Wastes provide a good first impression. The gameplay is layered and thoughtful, requiring an understanding of the environment and the enemy’s attack patterns. The death loop is both brutal but still fair so far, though options to suspend the game mid-cycle would be nice. DualSense and 3D audio, two key selling points of the PS5, are masterfully used within the biomes to create a unique, immersive experience. It’s a strong start for Returnal, and hopefully, the rest of the game can keep up the momentum.
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Kotaku said:
Since Returnal is among the first PS5-exclusive games, I’d be remiss not to address its next-gen bona fides. Yes, Returnal is gorgeous, certainly better looking than most PS4 games, and boasts the blistering load speeds you’d only find on a machine equipped with a solid-state drive. (Returnal cold boots—the time it takes to go from the game’s dashboard icon to actually playing—in under 20 seconds. In game, even fast-traveling doesn’t trigger a loading screen, at least within the first biome.) It’s all very impressive in terms of internal hardware, but the real draw here is how the game feels—literally.
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Kotaku AU said:
But I will say this: Returnal is absolutely my shit. Housemarque knows how to make fast, slick, crisp games that look good and handle well. Now, they’ve made basically a creepy Risk of Rain that looks gorgeous as all hell on the PS5. That’s a win in my book.
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TheSixthAxis said:
Right from the start of the game you’ll take down the more basic enemies with ease, with their slow moving projectiles easily avoided, and the pacing is steady like a Metroidvania, but since failure sends you back to the start, it’s taking me a little while to learn how to deal with the tougher, more dangerous enemies that blend together different attacks at once. Is it best to simply try to avoid them by hiding behind cover and popping out? How aggressive can I be with a shotgun and dashing in to close the distance? What does the build up to the homing attack look like? These are things that I’ll be figuring out for myself over the hours to come.

There’s plenty more to discover here; more biomes to visit, more abilities to unlock and some Metroidvania style broadening of the environment through them. I can’t wait to dive deeper.
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PSU said:
hen it comes to how Returnal performs, the game has been a pretty flawless experience for me. I haven’t had one crash or major gameplay disruption in the five hours I have played so far. The only issue I had was that I got trapped in a pool of acid and had to dash out of the way as I respawned to stop myself from getting trapped again.

But, the game looks and performs flawlessly. Running at an eye-watering 4K 60 FPS with ray-tracing enabled, Returnal might be the prettiest game I have seen on PS5, especially as the dark world of Atropos is excellently accented by the bright, neon attacks released by enemies flying and scuttling about.
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Gamerant said:
Without diving into spoiler territory, the story we've experienced up until this point has us hungry for more. There are distinct narrative branches – each with their own question marks – to push the player forward, and they've done so compellingly. Most of the storytelling in the early hours is environmental, with players finding data logs and other narrative elements scattered around the world. There's still the occasional cutscene, but they're usually brief.

As fans have seen in Returnal's gameplay trailers, the world changes with each death, sending (or "returning") Selene back to her crash-landed ship with each failed attempt to complete an objective. Other roguelike games use this same method, with Hades being one of the more recent examples, but Housemarque is setting it up as an integral part of the overarching narrative.
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Well Played AU said:
For now, know that Returnal has impressed me beyond belief during its opening few hours and I thoroughly look forward to spending more time uncovering its secrets.
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https://press-start.com.au/previews...-hours-of-returnal-and-its-addictive-as-hell/

I saw someone on twitter saying this is the best usage of Dualsense with Astro

Straight off the bat, this game is far more visual than any Housemarque game that has come before it. Everything from the opening cinematic, to the main character Selene’s death sequence, is far beyond anything that we’ve seen in Housmarque’s other games like Super Stardust and Alienation. The first thing that I noticed watching the opening cutscene is that this is probably the first game since Astro’s Playroom to make really good use of the haptics in the DualSense controller. Everything from the space ship crashing, to the rain falling can be felt in your hands, which adds to the immersion.

With the amount going on on the screen at any given time, this definitely feels like a game that wouldn’t have been possible on the PlayStation 4. It’s running at a buttery smooth 4K/60FPS, and I didn’t experience any slowdown despite 6-7 enemies on screen at once. Load times are also super quick between dying and transitioning between areas.

All in all, after a few hours with Returnal, I can’t stop thinking about it. The story has me intrigued, the game is absolutely gorgeous and I’m really addicted to the combat. The game has done really well in capturing what has made roguelikes great over the last few years and taking it to the next level. Whether it’ll hold up for the long-haul is yet to be seen, but so far, so good.
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