While it’s relatively common for AAA studios to tackle new genres typically associated with indie releases, the roguelite genre has somehow managed to largely avoid that fate. Aside from a few games that have optional game modes on the side with roguelite elements, we didn’t really see a major studio jump into the genre until one of the first PS5 exclusives, Return. After spending a few years on console, Retour is finally available on PC. But as always, the question is whether the game made the leap between platforms in one piece and how well it still holds up in terms of gameplay and story.
Back, for those who don’t know, is a roguelite third-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on speed, mobility, and bullet-hell elements. It puts players in the role of Selene, who crash-landed on an alien planet under mysterious circumstances. After Selene finds a gun on a corpse that looks exactly like her, Selene decides to find out what exactly is going on on this planet, and in order to do that she has her first (vague) mission: to find the source of the mysterious White Shadow emission.
The main story of Retour is one of the most interesting versions of the genre. The closest comparison I can think of is Hades – both games make their protagonists, who constantly die from failures, a huge part of their story. However, where Hades has his protagonist Zagreus constantly progressing with the characters around him, Selene in her isolation progresses within instead. Without giving too much away – and there’s a lot to spoil if you’re not careful – Returnal’s story is more about Selene herself than her situation or the alien planet.
“The Returnal story is more about Selene herself than her situation or the alien planet. »
It’s worth noting that Retour makes heavy use of its weirder aspects in its marketing. From the moment you fail your first run, you’ll notice recurring nightmares involving a mysterious astronaut and strange tentacles, among other things. There is a house as a recurring theme, as well as Selene’s entire ship, Helios. Add in the fate of a seemingly long-dead alien race and a mysterious extraterrestrial language that can be deciphered through multiple races – races that Selene herself seems to have passed through, if the logs you find everywhere are any indication – and it It should be obvious that Return has a lot to unpack when it comes to its story, themes, characters and what the game is trying to say.
Before we dive into the core gameplay, let’s talk about the most important aspect of this release: PC performance. After spending a couple of hours with Return, testing the gameplay and performance in at least two of the game’s biomes, it’s safe to say that Sony’s insanity for having great performance in its PC ports is undiminished. Despite the relatively high requirements (especially if you want to play around with ray tracing), Returnal offers several customization options that lead to the right performance.
I was able to achieve frame rates between 60 and 100 fps on a Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 32GB RAM PC and the game ran on the High preset. PC optimizations are not just limited to hardware performance and high frame rates; One of the small but much appreciated improvements is that every time you run Retour after an update, its shader caches are precompiled. This means the gameplay is less stuttering by the minute, which is great as even a few dropped frames could ruin an otherwise promising run.
“The rear offers multiple adjustment options that result in the right amount of performance.”
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the way Return runs on the Steam deck. After tinkering around as much as I could, going so far as to lower almost every setting I could and even trying a few command line startup arguments, I just couldn’t figure out that Back had a stable framerate at even 30 fps maintained in the game launch area. This means that even without enemies or projectiles around you, Returnal can’t work as well as it needs to for an enjoyable experience. As it stands, going back to the Steam deck is a bad idea. However, future updates may fix some of these issues.
Of course, none of this would really matter if the gameplay couldn’t hold your attention, and Retour is certainly no slouch in that department either. Back to all the typical roguelite shooter aspects you would expect – fancy weapons that are upgraded over the course of individual runs, small upgrades during a run, meta-progress revolving around unlocking new weapons and upgrades, and even a Metroid-inspired aspect of meta-progress where you start earning new gear that helps you explore older areas.
There’s definitely a constant sense of progression in one form or another, whether that’s in individual runs as you collect health and weapon upgrades, or maybe a new parasite that improves some of your abilities, or at a meta level with more important unlocks . like the blade or the grappling hook.
“There’s definitely a constant sense of progression in one form or another”
However, Return’s minute-by-minute gameplay is where things get a lot more interesting. Speed is one of the most important aspects of the game. You’re expected to be constantly on the move, and while the game features a special button to help you aim accurately, you’ll find yourself shooting more fire from your hip as you attempt to sprint your way through hordes of enemies , dodge and fight. In fact, almost all enemies use attack patterns directly inspired by classic shooters and bullet hell games like Ikaruga.
Enemy attacks are often huge colored bullets that are usually fired in a specific pattern. To help you with this, Selene is equipped with an incredibly versatile dodge. Not only does the length of the dodge itself depend on how long you hold the button, but it’s also an incredibly important part of crawling regularly, as it allows you to leap and fight over larger gaps. Thanks to its short cooldown of around a second, you’ll be expected to dodge the entire time, especially since it lets you pass through enemy bullets and lasers without getting hit.
And not getting hit while dealing with hordes of enemies is another interesting aspect of Return’s gameplay. The more you can kill while avoiding damage, the more your adrenaline will rise. Overload is a way of rewarding good gameplay, giving the player small but significant buffs the longer they are able to play well. The moment they are hit, the adrenaline gauge will be reset to 0 and the player will have to get these buffs again. Adrenaline buffs, called ÜberCharges, range from simple – like the ability to track enemies through walls – to interesting – like a longer window of time to trigger an active reload – to quite powerful – like an improved melee attack or 50% more weapon mastery.
“Thanks to its short cooldown of about a second, you’re expected to dodge constantly.”
One of the first hurdles that most players, including mine, have always faced. Back is the first boss in the biome: the Phrike. And this boss fight is one of the best examples of why Return is so much fun. Although I spent several days killing Phrike when I first started playing Back in 2021, I was only able to defeat him after a week. Still, the Phrike never felt entirely cheap. I always felt there was a player skill issue in the game and I was always striving to improve in the game. Having replayed the opening sections on PC, I can say with certainty that nostalgia wasn’t the only thing talking. When it comes to third-person action gameplay, Retour is among the best.
I’ve long argued that Return is reason enough in and of itself to own a PS5 since I first played it when the console launched. And now that it’s off the console, the reason to buy the console has greatly reduced, at least for someone like me who doesn’t find Sony’s other first-party foray particularly interesting. Back is a great game that sounds great, plays amazingly well and, particularly for the purposes of this review, has made the jump from PS5 to PC with a grace that few other titles seem capable of. Although it’s been two years since Return was first released, our thoughts on the game haven’t really changed. Return is still an incredibly fun and beautiful game that works great on PC.
This game has been reviewed on PC.