TechRadar Calls Returnal a Must-Play as PS5 Exclusives Remain Scarce Six Years On

According to TechRadar, Returnal was developed by Finnish studio Housemarque and launched as a PS5 exclusive before later coming to Windows. The game follows space-farer Selene Vassos, an astronaut and explorer who crash-lands on the uncharted world of Atropos. After emerging from the wreckage of her ship, Helios, Selene fights through jungles and ruins filled with alien animals and humanoids while trying to track the "White Shadow" distress beacon she hopes to use to escape.

The article says the game makes death and reawakening central to its narrative. When Selene falls to one of Atropos's hostile creatures, the game flashes through visions before she wakes at the crash site, which becomes the starting point for each run. Each time she leaves camp, the screen displays "Helios Abandoned." On later attempts, she finds corpses—versions of herself that did not reach the White Shadow—sometimes accompanied by voice recorders that begin to explain the planet's war-torn history.

TechRadar describes Returnal's core gameplay as a competent third-person shooter with light movement mechanics, comparing it to Dark Souls, Titanfall and Resogun "after three cups of coffee." It says players move quickly, shoot quickly and dodge dozens of on-screen projectiles. The article calls the controls tight and the game responsive, fast but never floaty.

The feature states that Returnal offers ten weapons, each with a few dozen modifiers, and carefully designed combat rooms that are rearranged with random number generation on each new run. About a third of the way through, it says, players unlock a grappling hook that the article calls the best in gaming since Just Cause 3. A free DLC in 2022 added the Tower of Sisyphus endless mode, which the article's author played for a few weeks after beating the main game.

TechRadar notes that Returnal can be punishingly hard. It says PlayStation trophies show just under a third of players have beaten the first boss. Even so, the article says the game is always incredibly fun to play.

The article's author writes that they were quickly hooked by Returnal's enigmatic premise, which takes a relatively small idea—making the gameplay loop an essential part of the story—and fills spare moments with symbolism and intrigue. An impossible Apollo-era astronaut stalks Selene around Atropos, and Selene's house appears in the overgrowth, seemingly plucked from Earth and becoming a doorway to surreal cutscenes. The article argues that the story, more than the mechanics, makes Returnal a must-play.

TechRadar says the piece is part of its From the Backlog series, which covers overdue first-plays, revisiting classics, returning to online experiences, or rediscovering established favorites. It notes that the author's first PlayStation Plus download was the indie game Tower of Guns, and that PS Plus later delivered Returnal as another memorable roguelike experience.