Sony’s slate of software for 2021 is looking amazing, and part of that is Housemarque’s roguelike shooter Returnal. Today, a new trailer has been released, showing off a couple more minutes of gameplay from the PlayStation 5 exclusive.
The video shows off a variety of weapons and tools you’ll be able to equip as you explore the hostile world of Atropos. In typical Housemarque style, your guns and abilities are all super flashy, and there look to be some really interesting weapon types. There are your usual go-tos, like a machine gun, but even that gets a sci-fi boost with alternate fire modes. The Electropylon Driver looks cool, firing off nodes that then outline an area of damage. The trailer also highlights some new environments, parasitic lifeforms that will alter gameplay, and mysterious alien artifacts you’ll find in each run.
Writing on the PlayStation Blog, game director Harry Krueger explains the team’s desire to create a super-replayable, “one more go” experience. Feeding into that is a variety of weapons, Weapon Traits, and other tools that will make each run unique.
Weapon Traits will give your guns extra effects, meaning you could end up with a shotgun-style weapon with exploding rounds, or that extracts extra loot from enemies, for example. These traits also stack, so you could end up with a seriously powerful weapon if you get far enough. Weapons get randomly assigned alternate fire modes, which will also help change things up.
Interestingly, Selene can only hold one weapon at a time, so you’ll be forced to switch up your strategy on the fly. Fortunately, upon each death, you won’t lose everything; some abilities and upgrades will persist between runs, making this more of a roguelite than a roguelike.
Add to all this the Cthonos device that gives you a random item each run, powerful tools like the Dismantler, and Parasites that will both help and hinder you in various ways, and it sounds like variety won’t be a problem in Returnal. There’s more info on the PS Blog post — it’s sounding really exciting. What do you make of these new details? Fire away in the comments section below.
