If you’re unfamiliar with Returnal, it’s an upcoming third-person shooter horror game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game’s story is about an astronaut named Selena who crashed on a mysterious planet with shape-shifting monsters. Selena will have to scrape through the ruins of an ancient civilization to reach Earth, battling against aliens and other types of calamities. Time and time again, she’ll be defeated, and players will have to find different ways to survive.
Returnal’s marketing director Mikael Haveri, in a recent interview with BBC, told the outlet how Returnal is trying to get everything it can from the specs:
I think we’re doing a lot with the visuals and really getting everything we can from the specs. And,I think that comes across with the contrast of the really dark environment against the really bright and colourful bullet-hell neon.
What really shines through, exclusively with the PS5, is the 3D audio is something that really lets players tap into that feedback loop. When somebody appears behind you, immediately, you can turn around and shoot them without any kind of visual clues.
Returnal is meant to be a roguelike, giving you incredible replayability and immersive gameplay that all roguelike fans can look forward to. The game will also contain a lot of horror elements, to evoke its cosmic horror setting. It’s meant to make you feel trapped, alone, and lost, giving you players a sense of how small we are compared to the entire universe.
