Returnal™

BREAK THE CYCLE Fight to survive as this award-winning third-person shooter brings Selene’s story to PC. Take on roguelike challenges. Engage enemies in bullet hell-fuelled clashes. Share your journey through Returnal™ with another player.

Returnal™ is a action, bullet hell and rogue-like game developed by Housemarque and Climax Studios and published by PlayStation Publishing LLC.
Released on February 15th 2023 is available only on Windows in 23 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian.

It has received 7,833 reviews of which 6,419 were positive and 1,414 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 59.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Returnal™ into these genres:

Action Bullet Hell Rogue-like Singleplayer Co-op Female Protagonist Online Co-Op Action Roguelike Space Third-Person Shooter Shooter Multiplayer Sci-fi Difficult Psychological Horror Rogue-lite Horror Atmospheric Metroidvania Arcade

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Returnal™ through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
Processor: Intel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz)
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB)
Storage: 60 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD Recommended

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Dec. 2024

Unfortunately, this is another game riddled with Unreal engine “traversal stutter”. However, if you use the engine ini file from Reddit (unreal stutter fix) + R457 graphics mod from Nexus + command line fixes, it seems to address the issue. See below https://www.nexusmods.com/returnal/mods/37 https://pastebin.com/Z4XvQqE8 (Dump the first into the paks folder, the engine ini goes into the appdata folder for Windows) Command lines to launcher: “-xgeshadercompile -nothreadtimeout -NoVerifyGC -dx12 -notexturestreaming” In fact, many of these approaches fix most unreal engine stutter, including Silent Hill 2 Remake, Jedi Survivor, FF7 Remake and others. Just have to dig around for whatever mod fixes the other 20-30% of the problem on Nexus. I took the “everything but the kitchen sync” approach once I realized this was an Unreal game. I actually have these tweaks/optimizations saved to my desktop specifically for Unreal games. The no texture streaming can be added to the ini as well, I recommend that. Doesn’t work in all unreal engine games and if you dont have a lot of vram you may crash. Just look up universal stutter fix on Reddit and it should be somewhere in one of the ini’s…. Something like r.texturestreaming = 0 under SystemSettings (going off of memory, not verbatim). I’m surprised these simple tweaks haven’t been done by the developers at least for high end hardware??? Seems like a conspiracy to encourage people to jump to the PS5 version… Game itself is amazing, but I prefer to use pak mods to lower the difficulty. Too hard at a base level. I’m not a big fan of this new “Dark Souls” impossible difficulty that has taken over gaming as a whole. Thankfully, mods do tone it down a bit and make it more enjoyable. Wish they had difficulty sliders in these “souls-like” games…easy mods make it more like “normal” difficulty. Still difficult depending on how far you go with the mods.

Nov. 2024

11/10 game for me cannot recommend enough this is one of the greats.] --Stellar philosophical themes and compelling protagonist --Exhilarating 3rd person shooter combat --The sound design and original music are next level --Haptics for the PS5 controller are very very well thought out, I really recommend playing with one if you can I know that a lot of reviews complain about performance, but I have had no issues with RTX 3060 and AMD 5700X3D. As an aside, I'd highly recommend anyone get whatever version of the X3D CPU they can afford. Every game that hitched or crashed on my old machine runs like butter on this one. ... And the 5700 version was quite cheap as far as CPUs go too. Seriously this game is awesome. Yes, it has its difficult moments but it's really not unreasonable and you get insanely OP on some runs just by sheer luck. Experiment with the weapons and game mechanics during your first few hours playing and don't be afraid to die a lot while you learn. The game is designed with that happening in mind.

July 2024

Returnal I definitely enjoyed it - the game turned out to be a mix of Remnant and Risk of Rain, which is a definite plus since I liked both projects. I also appreciated Sony's approach. They managed to create a very dynamic roguelike with satisfying impact and shooting mechanics, incredibly beautiful visuals, and they added a cinematic approach to the storyline, which includes elements of mystery, drama, and horror. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3282463806 Returnal is a roguelike for the wealthy. I think the pricing policy became a barrier to the game's popularity, because for most people, roguelikes are typically in the mid-low price segment. But here, Sony suddenly makes an almost AAA game that no one asked for. However, given the costs, it's impossible to sell such a game at the same price level as other roguelikes, so it was a risk, and it's still unclear if it paid off. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3288343674 During the full playthrough, there were a few unpleasant bugs, like a camera glitch after teleporting, or instances where the teleport itself wouldn't open. But overall, these bugs didn't affect my impression of the game. The game isn't very long; at various stages, it seems like you're reaching the end, but then it turns out there's more to go, requiring you to gather your strength and keep going. The difficulty level is moderately challenging, as you would expect from a roguelike, so you will have to die one way or another. The bosses are also relatively challenging (relative to the Elden Ring DLC, hehe), but overall, the game makes you sweat. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3285666368 In the end, I recommend trying this product, but it might be worth waiting for a discount. It's a high-quality and interesting cooperative experience with a friend. I'm not sure if it would have been better if the co-op supported more than two players, but I think having up to three players might have been optimal.

April 2024

Addresses many things that i don't like about rogue-like games: 1. Once a boss is defeated, you don't have to fight them again. You can choose to if you want, or you can just skip. 2. You can skip to further levels once you reach them the first time. 3. You aren't so dependent on RNG from builds so you never really feel under-powered. All of these things make the game so much more enjoyable for me.

March 2024

A critically underrated masterpiece. Few games have had such an impact on me as this one. Total mind-bending, batshit crazy, fun as hell game. Runs excellent on PC and now with some really awesome quality of life updates and full-fledged COOP. This game is a true 10/10 masterpiece.

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Data sources

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Last Updates

Steam data	18 November 2024 23:11
SteamSpy data	22 January 2025 16:52
Steam price	23 January 2025 12:32
Steam reviews	22 January 2025 00:01

59.99€

8.0

6,419

1,414

Online players

147

Developer

Housemarque, Climax Studios

Publisher

PlayStation Publishing LLC

Release 15 Feb 2023

Platforms