• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Returnal has sold around 560,000 copies

Lupin25

Member
Making any kind of comparison to this game sales-wise is premature and unfair in general (due to the pandemic and PS5 stock shortages).

Let’s just be content with the fact Sony went all-in on a relatively niche title and aren’t shying away from these kinds of games (like some presumed for doubling down on AAA productions) regardless of sales output.
 

yurinka

Member
Thing is about Sony that bugs me is they're so quick to kill off projects if they don't do exceedingly well and mega sales.
Like which one?
Sony closing that studio when that PSVR launch title flopped and recently closing Sony Japan seemed a little premature to me. Japan was one of their best studios.
Sony didn't close Japan Studio, they downsized it and rebranded it.

I'm really upset about them closing the Drive Club studio as well because that game ruled.
I loved Driveclub and the Motorstorm games, but they had back luck with Apocalypse released when that natural disaster happened so had to let it die, Driveclub had the issues with delays and the troubles at launch, and seems the studio wasn't let's say profitable, none of their games had great sales.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
Like which one?

Sony didn't close Japan Studio, they downsized it and rebranded it.


I loved Driveclub and the Motorstorm games, but they had back luck with Apocalypse released when that natural disaster happened so had to let it die, Driveclub had the issues with delays and the troubles at launch, and seems the studio wasn't let's say profitable, none of their games had great sales.
You just mentioned two of my all time favourite Sony games along with Twisted Metal, Warhawk, Resistance, the Ico games, The Last Gaurdian, the list goes on.

I feel like they dropped a lot of their games that had heart and are mostly being marginalised into 3rd person AAA blockbusters which I have little interest in.

Returnal seems like a passion project and the kind of game I'd like but I don't see a sequel happening because as already stated Housemarquee are moving on to a big AAA game.
 
Last edited:

Hestar69

Member
Shame how low it seems ratchet,demon souls and this game sold. I hope down the road when I get a ps5 to play them myself,But I wonder if the 70.00 price tag put alot of people off these games.
 

tommib

Member
I forget the exact percentages, but almost always %90 of a games lifetime Revenue comes within the first 3 months. There’s outliers that sell millions years later but it’s so exceptionally rare that it’s almost not worth considering.

Returnal will be lucky to break 1 million lifetime, 1.5 would be miraculous and highly unlikely.
By this logic, Ratchet will sell only 1.5 million copies. Makes no sense. Revenues more than ever have expanded in their lifespan as long as the game is good - which it is. Word of mouth and all.
 
This is a good point. I remember U1 selling only 111k in its first month and its lifetime sales topped out at 600k. Then U2 comes out two years later and sells 550k in its first month alone. U3 sells 700k in month one then TLOU sold 950k just a couple of years later. Insane 10x jump in sales in a span of 6 years.

One thing to keep in mind is that those Uncharted sales were NA only. Worldwide Sony games sold really well that generation. So Returnal's 550k in three months is worldwide. decent numbers but way way lower than the initial sales of KZ Shadowfall (2.1 million in 6 weeks), Infamous Second Son (1 million in 9 days), and even Bloodborne (1 million in one month) early last gen.

It will be interesting to see if Returnal can beat DriveClubs 2 million sales tally in the its first 8 months. Though at a $70 price tag, I am not too certain.

I would love to see Sony bundle this game with every playstation. There are a lot of great games on the PS5 but nothing made a better first impression than Returnal. It's an audiovisual masterpiece.

Yeah, basically I see Returnal as a great first start. Obviously the game has some issues with being too unforgiving and niche...but they can easily build on what they made, which is one of the best TPS mechanically I've ever played.

Add some more AAA story, character (not AS weird), and level design similar to metroid with more sustained character progression and you have a monster hit in the making IMHO
 

Denton

Member
5.6% of PS5 owners bought Returnal.

That it not a lot, given the hype about it everywhere during launch I would expect lot more than that.
 
Yeah that’s not great. Drop the price, add a save mechanic, and hopefully it attracts a lot more people.
On one hand I want a sequel, on the other hand I don’t. I’d love to see them bring these tight shooting and traversal mechanics to a single player adventure.
I wish software numbers start going downhill. There has to be a negative response to that $70 price tag.

On topic, Returnal sold 5.6%, that's an awful number. There's like 3 PS5 games and even then people won't buy this.
 

Vognerful

Member
Yes. Ive platinum’d the game.

Once you beat the 3rd boss and start in Biome/Level 4, if you die again you start in Biome/Level 4. You don’t go back to Biome/Level 1.
You always start in Biome/Level 4 after you beat the 3rd boss

And once you beat the first boss, you can use a level portal to reach level 2 without doing all of level 1.
Same as when you beat the 2nd boss. 4th/5th boss etc.

Once you finish the game, you can choose if you want to start in Level 1 or 4 to collect the key items for a 2nd/Secret ending.

The game also saves all you key items, weapon progress.

Theres alot of misinformation mostly by people who don’t even have the game or console lol….
Is it a save point or a check point? The biome thing

I mean if you quit the game and play something else then decide to come back to it, does it continue from that point or it always start from the beginning?

The concern here is that I heard people spend hours in a single run and the fact that the game does not maintain your progress in the run if you quit the game or switch the game sounds scary.
 

Captain Hero

The Spoiler Soldier
Tbh the one thing that hold me back from completing Returnal is the saving issue, other than that the game is so much fun.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Maybe asking 70€ for an indie game from a niche genre wasn't that great of an idea after all... I heard on some PS podcast some time ago that supposedly Housemarque weren't even aware that Sony was going to sell their game for full AAA price, dunno how much of it is true, but now since they have been bought we'll probably never know.. But still, the game was on the top spot on PS Store for quite some time, so if this one did only 560k copies, I don't even want to thing how other 3rd party games did...
 

BigLee74

Member
Hmm. Artistic freedom being used with the word ‘mega’ methinks. 😁

Numbers still seem fairly decent in comparison to PS5 sales though.
 

geary

Member
Why do you think that the deal for HM was done in the last 2 months? They decided to acquire them way before Returnal hit the shelves, so the financial performance of the games has not relevance in their purchase? Do you think at this level an acquisition decision and afterwards process is done in 2 months?
 

EDMIX

Member
So Sony buys a studio that sells 500k copies. But cancels sequels for games that sold 5 million. Brilliant.

Depends on how much each cost tbh.

You need to know the context of that first, I think its easy to make it seem as if it doesn't make sense, but you first again need to KNOW the context of each deal.

Keep in mind, I don't even know of some of those sequels are even cancelled, as in never ever going to happen or be a thing. Simply that it won't be book ended, like 1 and then 2, 3 etc.

I'd argue a new IP is more costly then a sequel on a existing engine with a existing install base, it shows the really trust that team if they are giving them yet another new IP, so I don't really buy that any sequel is really 100%, cancelled for life..
 

EDMIX

Member
Why do you think that the deal for HM was done in the last 2 months? They decided to acquire them way before Returnal hit the shelves, so the financial performance of the games has not relevance in their purchase? Do you think at this level an acquisition decision and afterwards process is done in 2 months?

I think its deeply part of it. As someone that has spent literally years selling real estate, I've been in deals that took months of back and forth from builders to investors, only for it to turn to nothing in 1 day.

Soooooooo they very much could have made buying the team based on the performance of the game, its not a ironclad thing, its not this thing that they are locked in, its not something they can't walk away from.

Thats not how any of this works.

For all you know, the deals final parts was literally based on the game actually doing well to Sony's liking, ie they'll buy them for this much or that much based on some performance clause
 

EDMIX

Member
Not good, ouch

Well...maybe, maybe not.

I'm not really sure what is good or not good for smaller stuff like this. I remember when Heavy Rain released and I felt they did bad and Sony stated it did well for them and broke down why, that's when I learned its relative to the cost of development.


I think more gamers need to factor this in and understand, its like building a condo complex and making millions and then flipping a small house with less risk and a higher ROI and someone saying it worse or "not good" because they are stuck looking at 1 number vs another number with zero context.

So....I think more gamers need to consider this before the "oh it sold this thus they must be made"

Think...what did they spend, what did they want and what did it sell and at what price point.

I can't tell you someone made $40k from 1 deal and someone else made $200k from another deal and magically tell you one did better then the other. I've seen deals where someone builds a house from scratch and got one of those numbers and made less profit then the person that got the lower number. If you don't factor what the fuck was spent, I have no clue how anyone can say, good, bad, great, horrible etc
 

alienator

Member
I just beat the game in 53 hours without no "saving"

People without no knowledge how the game works should really not buy it and continue shitting on it with meme like comments annd worry about sales.

from a gamer perspective this is one of the most addictive games i have played sofar this year and i fully accept this game isnt for everyone
 

Matt_Fox

Member
was expecting a bit closer to 1m but its only been out a month. once PS5's are readily available i could see it selling 3-4m lifetime.

No it came out 3 months ago, 30th April.

Current PS5 owners are hardcore early adopters and yet only one in 20 of them bought it, and that's during the period when it received its marketing spend.

By the time PS5's are readily available there will be bright new shiny games to entice new owners. 3-4 million sales will never happen, but I am sure it will eventually find a wider audience when it comes free to PS+ in a couple years.
 

yurinka

Member
I feel like they dropped a lot of their games that had heart and are mostly being marginalised into 3rd person AAA blockbusters which I have little interest in.
Sony also makes games like Astrobot, Dreams or Sackboy, plus weird stuff for VR and (at least in Europe) casual family party games to play using smartphones as controllers, or even Gran Turismo.

They will continue getting games from Japan Studio (now rebranded as Team Asobi), Housemarque in addition to 2nd parties like -pretty likely- Kojipro, From Software (remember the deal with their parent company) or Bluepoint.

Returnal seems like a passion project and the kind of game I'd like but I don't see a sequel happening because as already stated Housemarquee are moving on to a big AAA game.
Returnal has 1344 people on its game credits and had 4 years of development. It's in the range of a normal AAA. But yes, they mentioned that they expect that their project will be bigger.
 
It didn't bomb at all and your post reeks of misogyny. Not cool, bro.
It did bomb, since when selling under 1M isn’t bomba? Nintendo sells that much during the toilet break.

And I don’t know about you but it seems everywhere I look now there’s female main character and as a male person I wanna play as my sex. It’s not realistic seeing so many women in combat situations. Really simple. 68% of people playing as male Shepard in new Mass Effect remake says it all.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Is it a save point or a check point? The biome thing

I mean if you quit the game and play something else then decide to come back to it, does it continue from that point or it always start from the beginning?

The concern here is that I heard people spend hours in a single run and the fact that the game does not maintain your progress in the run if you quit the game or switch the game sounds scary.
If you quit the game or die it will bring you back to level 4. Weapon progress and key items stay with u.

Once you finish a boss, there will be a portal to skip that level just beat. Whether you die or quit, the short cuts and progress stay.

As do all the house segments
 

Kokoloko85

Member
At the time, it had a much higher attach rate than Returnal. It's sold at least 4x as many copies as well. Returnal is closer to Demons Souls PS3, sales-wise, than Bloodborne.

MLB The Show sells millions of copies year after year, not even in the same...ahem....ballpark.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I thought I'd point that out.

As of now. Bloodborne didnt sell 2 million copies in the first 3 months.
Plus its a Miyazaki game. Much bigger studio and name it should sell more than Returnal.
Bloodborne deserves even more, its amazing
 
Most publishers would probably consider this a success. Obviously it didn't have a "real" AAA budget but more like 1/10th of Sony's major games so it doesn't need to sell millions. It's just a bit confusing why Sony decided to buy Housemarque in particular. They don't seem to produce the type of games that have the potential for a truly wide appeal.
 

EDMIX

Member
I mean, I'm going to tell you right now Sony is not interested in games that sell 560, 000 copies. They have killed off major studios and franchises for better sales than that

That's simply not true and it's extremely disingenuous.

It completely takes out of contacts What specifically went on in those studios in favor of just trying to use a finite number regardless of all circumstance but as somebody that has been in business for quite a while I'm telling you that's not really out any of this goes.

I don't just say I want to make a specific number and then ignore all the cost that come from that actual number...

So unfortunately Gamers for whatever reason have a very strange way of looking at this they don't really factor in the actual development cost and then completely ignore that there's going to be a difference on how Publishers will look at specific titles based on what they invested and what they projected.

So to say Sony is not interested in a game moving these type of numbers is quite ridiculous if you consider they purchase the team it's even more ridiculous if you consider it's not like you're talkin about this game five or six years later you are literally talking about just a very short number of months on sale...., you also completely disregarded how much Sony put into the property and how much they expected to get in return, you are also disregarding if Sony wants to make this a series or if Sony sees this as a once-over and has already seen internally that House Maq is working on something else they want to be a major property in the future.

So you can't simply just to make a comment like that and then ignore everything else.

Even worse is you're making this comment about a publisher that has publicly made it aware that they are happy with these numbers and told the public they felt it was a mega hit and even revealed these fucking numbers in the first place publicly to show they are impressed with how it has performed in those few months and purchase the development team in a situation like this very much contradicts your entire statement so I'm not sure how they're not interested in this but by the team and brag about the sales.

Understand what I'm saying and please Factor this into your comments because it's beyond ignorant any company is not simply looking at one finite number and then ignoring everything else with their actually looking at is their rate of return (ROI) in regards to what they can afford to Market and spend on development and what they can expect in return and if such a thing is actually worth it which means we don't even know what the number that Sony was interested in as the final count for something like this knowing that it's not like there are other major big AAA properties.

But if they are telling you its a "mega hit" after they are then releasing the sales numbers and then they are purchasing the development team I don't really fucking know how much needs to happen to show you they are quite fine with this lol


Bear in mind what you're talkin about is not even something exclusive the Sony Computer Entertainment you're literally talking about a concept that exists throughout the entire game industry and business in general I don't even believe a single major publisher exist right now that is not had to close down a development Studio even after half a million units sold. If a development studio is doing so poorly with delays and mismanagement and a whole bunch of other problems if the game sold better than this and they still closed the studio that alone should fucking tell you just how badly the studio was doing if even after great sales Sony could not afford gamble with the Studio's bad decisions.

Not everything is going to come down to Simply the sales of the units you must pay attention to development costs and delays in a bunch of other problems that could exist that's not really showing you the bigger picture.

You are basically looking at one number and assuming it's good and then ignore all else which doesn't entirely make a lot of sense.

Having said that, Sony is not interested in Returnal, they are interested in HouseMarquee

I disagree.

If they hated this game and how badly it did based on your logic, no reason to buy a team , making games you are not interested in, it doesn't even make sense.... So Sony doesn't really have a history of buying a team and being like "can you make something you don't want to make please" . Sony bought Insomniac and you still saw them crank out a Spiderman and Ratchet game lol They bought Guerilla Games and you still saw Killzones and a new IP, they just have a history of buying a team for WHAT THAT TEAM DOES WELL and letting them roll with that, which makes a lot of sense. So I think Sony is ok with a new IP from them, I think Sony is ok with a sequel to this from them.

I think you're missing my point. Sony's purchase of Housemarque has little to do with Returnal,

I see zero evidence of this.

Just stop man. You are trying your best to dismiss Sony's praise of this team, this game and their purchase to make it sound like none of those are connected in any way or something. The game doing well simply solidifies their purchase. So you telling me if this game bombed and was filled with bugs and unplayable Sony would still buy the team? Come on man lol

Look at The Order 1886, Ready At Dawn had history with Sony for sometime by the team that game came along, rumors at the time was Sony was going to buy Ready At Dawn (well everyone thinks Sony will buy anyone theses days if they work with em long enough, but I digress) , the game to my understanding moved over 1 million units, but the game also was in development since 2010, didn't review well, Sony didn't make a sequel in terms of getting Ready At Dawn to do one, in fact...that is the last game Sony has ever contracted them to do...do you think Sony likes Ready At Dawn? Do you really fucking think oh they HATE The Order, but love the fucking team that made the thing that lost them money? Really? They didn't buy that team, they literally stopped using them for contracted work and it shows such a thing is tied. Its not simply the game making itself, a team does that and if they do that well, with little delays and with Sony making money, they are likely to buy and keep that going. I don't see anything that shows Sony hates this game man.

Ask Evolution Studios

Well its still valid, Sony liked what they got from Motorstorm and bought them and Big Big studios, doesn't mean they like the delays with Drive Club or the development cost etc. They had many years under Sony before being closed, it doesn't change that Sony bought them based on something they liked.

You can also be CLOSED for something they don't like...thats business.
 

Vognerful

Member
If you quit the game or die it will bring you back to level 4. Weapon progress and key items stay with u.

Once you finish a boss, there will be a portal to skip that level just beat. Whether you die or quit, the short cuts and progress stay.

As do all the house segments
So it is either biome 1 or biome 4 that the game can save your progress on?
 

sobaka770

Banned
Bought it full price. No MTX, no BS, hours of solid gameplay - worth every cent.
Yes the game seems to cost more but Sony is almost the only remaining publisher that doesn't nickel and dime the audience within the game and at the time where even single player games have stores that peace of mind has a premium.

Returnal is awesome and on sale so get it.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
At 10 million PS5's sold apparently (as Sony keeps touting) a 5% attach rate really isn't good. Unless 3/4 of those PS5's are in scalpers hands.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
That's simply not true and it's extremely disingenuous.

It completely takes out of contacts What specifically went on in those studios in favor of just trying to use a finite number regardless of all circumstance but as somebody that has been in business for quite a while I'm telling you that's not really out any of this goes.

I don't just say I want to make a specific number and then ignore all the cost that come from that actual number...

So unfortunately Gamers for whatever reason have a very strange way of looking at this they don't really factor in the actual development cost and then completely ignore that there's going to be a difference on how Publishers will look at specific titles based on what they invested and what they projected.

So to say Sony is not interested in a game moving these type of numbers is quite ridiculous if you consider they purchase the team it's even more ridiculous if you consider it's not like you're talkin about this game five or six years later you are literally talking about just a very short number of months on sale...., you also completely disregarded how much Sony put into the property and how much they expected to get in return, you are also disregarding if Sony wants to make this a series or if Sony sees this as a once-over and has already seen internally that House Maq is working on something else they want to be a major property in the future.

So you can't simply just to make a comment like that and then ignore everything else.

Even worse is you're making this comment about a publisher that has publicly made it aware that they are happy with these numbers and told the public they felt it was a mega hit and even revealed these fucking numbers in the first place publicly to show they are impressed with how it has performed in those few months and purchase the development team in a situation like this very much contradicts your entire statement so I'm not sure how they're not interested in this but by the team and brag about the sales.

Understand what I'm saying and please Factor this into your comments because it's beyond ignorant any company is not simply looking at one finite number and then ignoring everything else with their actually looking at is their rate of return (ROI) in regards to what they can afford to Market and spend on development and what they can expect in return and if such a thing is actually worth it which means we don't even know what the number that Sony was interested in as the final count for something like this knowing that it's not like there are other major big AAA properties.

But if they are telling you its a "mega hit" after they are then releasing the sales numbers and then they are purchasing the development team I don't really fucking know how much needs to happen to show you they are quite fine with this lol


Bear in mind what you're talkin about is not even something exclusive the Sony Computer Entertainment you're literally talking about a concept that exists throughout the entire game industry and business in general I don't even believe a single major publisher exist right now that is not had to close down a development Studio even after half a million units sold. If a development studio is doing so poorly with delays and mismanagement and a whole bunch of other problems if the game sold better than this and they still closed the studio that alone should fucking tell you just how badly the studio was doing if even after great sales Sony could not afford gamble with the Studio's bad decisions.

Not everything is going to come down to Simply the sales of the units you must pay attention to development costs and delays in a bunch of other problems that could exist that's not really showing you the bigger picture.

You are basically looking at one number and assuming it's good and then ignore all else which doesn't entirely make a lot of sense.



I disagree.

If they hated this game and how badly it did based on your logic, no reason to buy a team , making games you are not interested in, it doesn't even make sense.... So Sony doesn't really have a history of buying a team and being like "can you make something you don't want to make please" . Sony bought Insomniac and you still saw them crank out a Spiderman and Ratchet game lol They bought Guerilla Games and you still saw Killzones and a new IP, they just have a history of buying a team for WHAT THAT TEAM DOES WELL and letting them roll with that, which makes a lot of sense. So I think Sony is ok with a new IP from them, I think Sony is ok with a sequel to this from them.



I see zero evidence of this.

Just stop man. You are trying your best to dismiss Sony's praise of this team, this game and their purchase to make it sound like none of those are connected in any way or something. The game doing well simply solidifies their purchase. So you telling me if this game bombed and was filled with bugs and unplayable Sony would still buy the team? Come on man lol

Look at The Order 1886, Ready At Dawn had history with Sony for sometime by the team that game came along, rumors at the time was Sony was going to buy Ready At Dawn (well everyone thinks Sony will buy anyone theses days if they work with em long enough, but I digress) , the game to my understanding moved over 1 million units, but the game also was in development since 2010, didn't review well, Sony didn't make a sequel in terms of getting Ready At Dawn to do one, in fact...that is the last game Sony has ever contracted them to do...do you think Sony likes Ready At Dawn? Do you really fucking think oh they HATE The Order, but love the fucking team that made the thing that lost them money? Really? They didn't buy that team, they literally stopped using them for contracted work and it shows such a thing is tied. Its not simply the game making itself, a team does that and if they do that well, with little delays and with Sony making money, they are likely to buy and keep that going. I don't see anything that shows Sony hates this game man.



Well its still valid, Sony liked what they got from Motorstorm and bought them and Big Big studios, doesn't mean they like the delays with Drive Club or the development cost etc. They had many years under Sony before being closed, it doesn't change that Sony bought them based on something they liked.

You can also be CLOSED for something they don't like...thats business.
I never said Sony hated Returnal or weren't impressed with it, simply that they have bigger ambitions for Housemarque, who are going on to create a bigger project, which is evidence of this.

However, I take their praises of Returnal with a grain of salt because in the same pr, which read like advertising, they called Playstation Allstars a worldwide phenom. Sony is not the kind of company who would ever say anything bad about the performance of their products, just quietly take them behind the shed if they were unhappy. Even PSVR was touted as a success early on for selling 5 or so million units. Was that better than other units in the space? Sure. But I'm also sure they were hoping for a lot more widespread adoption than that with their developers, name and advertising dollars behind it.
 

GuinGuin

Banned
Not a huge number but the entire genre is niche. I'm guessing the budget was small enough that it was still quite profitable. For their next game I could see them expanding and fine tuning the gameplay but giving it a more conventional structure (auto save and multiple save points) to lure in a larger audience.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
So it is either biome 1 or biome 4 that the game can save your progress on?
Weapons and Items saved

Weapon progress, weapons unlocked, Key items, Ciphers and story items/segments save anytime and anywhere. You don‘t lose these. They save whether you die or finish anywhere in any level. Not just Biome 1 or 4, or completeing a level. They save anywhere, anytime.

You lose the weapon you were holding and secondary/bonus items when you die or quit. There are chests or enemy drops to pick up random weapons and they will carry on the progress from before depending on the weapons level.

If you pick up a level 1 or 2 weapon for example in an early part of the level, it won‘t have the same features you unlocked at a higher level weapon. But when you pick up a higher level weapon it will have the same features you progressed from before and you can carry on unlocking more attacks.


About level progress.
It saves your level progress after completing certain parts of a level and beating a boss. Sometimes reaching a boss will open a short up. Not just in Biome 1 or 4. Parts of the level unlocked will save and are always unlocked every run.

So:
Once you finish Biome 1, you can use a portal in Biome 1 to enter Biome 2. So you don’t need to do Biome 1 all over again if you die/ quit playing.

Once you Finished Biome 2 and have entered Biome 3. You can use another shortcut in Biome 1 to go straight to Biome 3. So no need to go to Biome 2 again.

Also once you get to the boss in Biome 2 and die/quit, you can reach the boss area again via a biome 2 shortcut. You might not have the ideal weapon at that point, so you’ll want so you wanna play around a bit more before fighting the boss. Sometimes you end up with your favourite weapon pretty quick, its random.

For Biome 3 ( The hardest level and boss in my opinion )
When you open the bridge in Biome 3, whether you die or quit. You don’t have to unlock the bridge again. Its already open, so you run across and get to the boss alot faster.
So from the Biome 1 you can get to the boss in Biome 3 much quicker. Its still not easy but its like 10-30 minutes to get to the 3rd boss depending on how you play. Its the most annoying part of the game, to go from Biome 1 to the 3rd boss and die.

Theres also items that give you an extra life and resurrection checkpoints ( you can only use 1 of each per run )

After 3rd boss
If you beat the 3rd boss. You will always start in Biome 4, whether you quit the game, or die etc. No going back to Biome 1, 2 or 3.

Then its the same as before, finish an area like unlock the doors in Biome 4, then you don’t need to unlock them again. You can go straight to the boss.
Finish Biome 4’s boss. You can use a portal in Biome 4 to enter Biome 5 quick and so on.

(When you finish the game, then you can choose whether to start in biome 1 or 4 via your starting spaceship. All the portals and shortcuts are unlocked. So you can replay the levels and find Ciphers and story items etc )

Its not a easy game at all, but I find it a bit easier than Bloodborne, Dark Souls etc. Yes it would of been alot easier if you can save your point just before a boss but there would be little challenge.
 

BLAUcopter

Gold Member
Yes. Ive platinum’d the game.

Once you beat the 3rd boss and start in Biome/Level 4, if you die again you start in Biome/Level 4. You don’t go back to Biome/Level 1.
You always start in Biome/Level 4 after you beat the 3rd boss

And once you beat the first boss, you can use a level portal to reach level 2 without doing all of level 1.
Same as when you beat the 2nd boss. 4th/5th boss etc.

Once you finish the game, you can choose if you want to start in Level 1 or 4 to collect the key items for a 2nd/Secret ending.

The game also saves all you key items, weapon progress.

Theres alot of misinformation mostly by people who don’t even have the game or console lol….
Beating nemesis was like a game in itself. I spent hours trying to beat that boss and loved every minute of it. I had an intimate relationship with the starting biomes and during those many, many attempts I really fell in love with the game. The night I finally beat nemesis, I continued on until I completed the game in that same sitting. Once done I kinda just sat there in awe. Hands down my favourite PS5 game, if not one of my favourite games of all time.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah, basically I see Returnal as a great first start. Obviously the game has some issues with being too unforgiving and niche...but they can easily build on what they made, which is one of the best TPS mechanically I've ever played.

Add some more AAA story, character (not AS weird), and level design similar to metroid with more sustained character progression and you have a monster hit in the making IMHO
Yeah i love your Metroid/souls idea. It's a much better fit for what they are trying to do, but I also really liked the fact that they essentially made the first AAA rouge like. it felt refreshing to play something so different with such high production values.
 

tommib

Member
Beating nemesis was like a game in itself. I spent hours trying to beat that boss and loved every minute of it. I had an intimate relationship with the starting biomes and during those many, many attempts I really fell in love with the game. The night I finally beat nemesis, I continued on until I completed the game in that same sitting. Once done I kinda just sat there in awe. Hands down my favourite PS5 game, if not one of my favourite games of all time.
It went straight into my top 5 to the point that I’m still on my post-Returnal depression. I got a Switch lite just to play Super Metroid to get that vibe again.
 

hroerekr

Member
Yikes.

It looks like the 70$ did not work for less known games after all.
I wonder how long until it hits PSPlus.
 
Last edited:

Larlight

Member
I mean, I'm going to tell you right now Sony is not interested in games that sell 560, 000 copies. They have killed off major studios and franchises for better sales than that. I'm also going to tell you that Sony is not a company that will tell you they are disappointed in the sales of anything. Their moto is not to show weakness in PR.

Having said that, Sony is not interested in Returnal, they are interested in HouseMarquee, a talented developer they purchased and likely expect to profit much more from in the future.

They killed off games such as Days Gone since that's what you're probably talking about because it had low critical reception. Sony isn't trying to fill their line up of shovelware/badly reviewed exclusive games when one of their selling points is having great AAA blockbusters with great reception. Not to mention Days Gone probably had a much larger budget than Returnal. Plus, it's also possible they didn't want to continue Days Gone because we already have a few post apocalyptic games being made by Sony devs and they are trying to diversify their line up.
 

coffinbirth

Member
It doesn't sell as much as you think.

MLB The Show 21 is one of the best-selling titles in the series and it sold 2 million on two platforms to date. The sales have been lower going sevearl enteries back.
I think it "sells millions of copies year after year" as I said...because it does.
 
Top Bottom