Gaming

I’ve Fallen In Love With Returnal By Playing It The Complete Wrong Way

May 30, 2024 - By admin

Back in 2021, I began my career as a video game journalist here at DualShockers. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I couldn’t believe I’d landed my dream job. Shortly after, I was tasked with my first review: Returnal. I was nervous but eager to dig into this gorgeous-looking game on my shiny new PlayStation 5. Within a short amount of time, I knew I loved Returnal. The only problem? I sucked at it.

I never did manage to play enough to review it (although, we had a fantastic review accomplished by my colleague Peter), and my failure has haunted me for all these years. While I do, undoubtedly, suck at video games, let me argue my defence. Reviewing video games isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Journalists are often given a short window to play, complete, analyse, and write the review before the embargo, which can be a stressful task, especially if the game in question is as hard as Returnal.

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I continued to chip away at Returnal, but, rather unsurprisingly, it’s difficult to “chip away” at a game that completely resets every time you die. If you’re reading this, you’re likely well aware of how Returnal’s gameplay works, but just in case you’re not, Returnal is a roguelike, which means it makes use of procedurally generated levels and includes permanent deaths. Once you’re dead, you’re dead.

This was my first foray into the roguelike genre and, obviously, it didn’t go too well. But, despite getting nowhere near completion, I thought Returnal was undeniably worthy of its critical fame. Its eery yet trance-like soundtrack, mystifying narrative, jaw-dropping graphics, and addictive gameplay made me wish I was good enough to see this one to the end.

Eventually, I gave up. Until recently.

Oh No, He’s A Save Scummer

Yes, yes, you read that right. I have completely disregarded the “correct” way to play Returnal and discovered that there’s a cheeky little save exploit that’s simple to do.

After many others had similar difficulties as I did, developer Housemarque added a ‘Suspend Cycle’ feature. This wasn’t labelled as a save feature, but it allowed you to pause where you were, exit the game, even turn off your console, and continue another time. But once you died, you were still going right back to the start. So it was kind of like a compromise to make this epic title more accessible to the lower-skilled gamers of the world.

Fans quickly discovered that there was a way to exploit the new ‘Suspend Cycle’ feature, simply by turning off auto-sync, uploading your save to the cloud, and then re-downloading it whenever you die. The process can become quite tedious, but it’s better than having to restart the whole game.

Before I explain my reasoning for being a filthy save scummer, I want to make it clear that this is not the way Housemarque intended their game to be played. I’m very well aware of that. Housemarque has even said it still wanted to keep “the roguelike spirit and high stakes commitment” intact when adding the ‘Suspend Cycle’ feature, which is why it doesn’t operate exactly like a mid-game save.

So, Why Did I Do It?

Had I not opted to use this controversial tactic, I would never have been able to appreciate the world that Housemarque had created. Sure, it’s not the way the game is intended to be played, but if I’m personally getting satisfaction and enjoyment out of a £70 game that I purchased, without hurting anyone in the process, why should that be such a big deal?

I’ve seen some Returnal fans argue that you’re not getting the full experience by playing this way, and I’m sure they’re right. But I simply do not have the time nor patience to invest in a game that forces me to completely restart every time I die, which means if I didn’t make use of this save exploit, I’d probably just never play this epic game, and that would be a damn shame.

Returnal has become one of my favourite games, even without me getting the ‘full experience’, so I’ve got no regrets about using an exploit, because I’d never have this game in my life if I didn’t.