Returnal (video game)

Returnal is a third-person shooter roguelike video game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 5 on April 30, 2021. The game follows Selene, an Astra scout who lands on the planet Atropos in search for the mysterious white signal and finds herself trapped in a time loop.
Gameplay.
"Returnal" is a third-person shooter video game featuring roguelike elements and covering the psychological horror genre. Set in a futuristic science fiction setting, the player controls Selene (Jane Perry), a space pilot, equipped with a suit and armed with high-tech weapons, who is stranded on the alien planet Atropos, and stuck in a time loop. After every death, Selene is resurrected, following a pattern of traversing across foreign environments and combating extraterrestrial entities with growing visions in an ever changing world.
Plot.
Disobeying orders, ASTRA Corporation explorer Selene Vassos attempts to land on the off limits planet of Atropos to investigate what she dubs the "White Shadow" signal, which somehow seems familiar to her. Upon arriving on Atropos, Selene's ship suffers heavy damage and she is forced to crash land. Unable to contact ASTRA, Selene explores the planet and is shocked when she comes across corpses of herself. She learns that every time she dies, time seems to loop back to the moment she crashed, sending her back to her starting point. In addition, the planet seems to change with every loop, and she also experiences vivid but random visions. 
Resolving to find the source of the White Shadow, Selene presses on, fighting hostile alien lifeforms and scavenging alien technology left over from an advanced but extinct alien civilization that used to reside on Atropos. As she tracks the White Shadow, Selene comes across what appears to be a replica of her childhood home. Every time she enters it, she recalls old memories and constantly encounters an Astronaut wearing an antique space suit. Selene remembers her troubled relationship with her mother, Theia, as well as with her own son, Helios, who she neglected in favor of work. Her memories also circle around two car accidents, once from her youth, which left Theia crippled, and a later one that apparently resulted in Helios' death. Selene also learns that she apparently used an alien cannon to paradoxically shoot down her own ship (also called HELIOS), which caused her to be stranded on Atropos. 
Eventually, Selene tracks down the source of the White Shadow, which shows her more visions of the past and future before shutting down. Afterwards, ASTRA receives her distress call and sends a rescue ship. Selene returns to Earth as a hero and eventually dies of old age, only to reawaken back on Atropos, having looped back to the crash. Dismayed that she has failed to escape Atropos, Selene continues to explore the planet. Eventually, her search leads her to an underwater abyss below the planet's surface, where she finds a replica of her old car. From this point, the game diverges based on whether Selene fully investigated her house and recovered the car keys from it. 
Development.
"Returnal" was developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game takes advantage of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller and Tempest Engine to support advanced haptic feedback, 3D spatial audio, and real-time ray tracing effects, enhancing the player immersion experience. With the increased processing power and inclusion of a custom solid state drive storage in the PlayStation 5, the game features reduced loading times and a wide variety of enemies, visual effects, and objects within gameplay scenes. Additionally, the game runs at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second.
"Returnal" features an original score composed primarily by Bobby Krlic.
Release.
"Returnal" was revealed at Sony's PlayStation 5 reveal stream on June 11, 2020. The game was exclusively developed for the PlayStation 5. The game was initially scheduled for a release on March 19, 2021. On January 28, 2021, it was announced the release date was pushed back a month to April 30, 2021. On March 25, 2021, it was announced that the game had gone gold.
Reception.
Critical response.
"Returnal" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Returnal has received some criticism from players for it's lack of a save feature resulting in developer HouseMarque to make a statement that they are working address the issue but do not know what form a save feature may take. 