Returnal’s 2.0 update is live today, allowing players to pause mid-run with Suspend Cycle, and get creative with Photo Mode

[BobSaac2]

It's pretty elliptical. If you want definitive answers and a straight forward conclusion, Returnal ain't it.

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This

While I loved the game, and it's my personal GOTY alongside Dread, I think they took a bit too far leaving pretty much everything up for interpretation.

There is a bit of difference between been mysterious and even subjective. However, the points in the story just don't connect. The ending leaves you with more questions than answers. Even if you dive deep into log ship and glyphs (I did), you still cannot put together two sentences that are true to the "real story". Basically, you can make up anything for the story. The entire game could be just a dog dreaming or whatever.

Having said that, playing it for the first time and just experiencing the world, the environments and trying to figure thing out, still was very enjoyable. I still keep playing the game after more than 60h, doing random runs just because the game is insanely fun.

 

[JaseMath]

Alright, time to bite. I don't like to play games for more than 2 hours at a stretch, so the suspend feature is a dealmaker for me! 🙌

 

[catpurrcat]

Unfortunately it doesn't spawn until B4. If it means anything B3 was The Big Wall for most people, myself included. Pretty smooth sailing from there if you can overcome it.

When was the last time you tried playing by the way? from what I understand they've nerfed the annoying drones in B3 since launch, might make things more manageable for you. I do agree the game would benefit from some difficulty/accessibility options :/

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I appreciate the kind response, thanks for the detail and for asking. I tried it again for a couple of hours after the patch most recent the last one. While I did get a little further in B3 possibly thanks to the rebalancing, I was too frustrated to continue. Haven't even reached the boss yet.

my biggest annoyance is that I feel like I'm getting hit off screen all the time. And I can never tell whether my dodge works or not... because I constantly end my dodge right at the moment I get hit with something.

I don't know, I guess it's not for me. Too hard :(

 

[AwShucks]

a suspend game is very nice but this issue was way overblown imo.

lets just say this game didn't start you at square one every time you died, and a lot of people who never played this assumed that and ripped it endlessly

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I mean, I've seen plenty of people say that even their later runs took 3+ hours. I play other games, my kid plays games, 3+ hours would greatly restrict when I could play the game.

 

[Shadow-Link]

Perfect timing, I just finished Metroid Dread.

 

[KeRaSh]

GOTY just got GOTYer.

Wish their next game would be Returnal but as a full on metroidvania.

 

[Kaiken]

That's pretty cool. Wish every game can be suspended like this. Quick resume for everyone.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

GOTY just got GOTYer.

Wish their next game would be Returnal but as a full on metroidvania.

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Yeah, that would be dope.

 

[Wingus]

About time this was implemented.

Will look into trying it once the game goes on a good sale.

 

[Yuuber]

Get on this game now, it's great. No excuses!

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I could be wrong, but I have the feeling people who were very vocal against the save thing weren't going to get the game anyway.

 

[Handicapped Duck]

Anyone find out if they made glyphs and scout logs more prevalent? I'm still missing one in B1 after 60 hours in the game, B2 and B3 I have had complete runs where I only find one glyph and scout log, it's getting ridiculous at this point. If the gameplay wasn't so good and I didn't mind upgrading my weapons, I'd have dropped the platinum after beating the game once.

 

[HiLife]

Waiting for my invasion mechanic /s

 

[Oracle]

I absolutely loved this game !

The sense of progression and skill evolution within YOURSELF is unlike anything I have ever played. I platinumed it in about 44 hrs or so and really loved every second of it. The sense of wonder, weapons, biomes, MUSIC etc was all fantastic. One of PS5s best games. And I do not play rouge lite? games like this at all. Its a must own.

 

[Rag]

Can anyone else confirm that this update broke the Doombringer alt-fire's ability to take down the orange barriers that lock off some side rooms? I'm here letting mine charge up over and over and firing it at a barrier with no results like a dingus.

 

[JusDoIt]

THE GOTY GOT GOTYIER

 

[Handicapped Duck]

I remember a patch that nerfed the flying drones.

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Those guys in B3 and B5 still are the worst enemies in the game. Only the Severed in B5 are equal to them because they hit hard if you make a mistake.

 

[KingK]

Awesome, so just like Hades' save and quit, exactly how I wanted it! Already got the Platinum, and didn't have any issues personally just using rest mode. But there were a couple times this would have been nice to allow my gf to play a different game while I was at work and had a run suspended with rest mode. Hopefully we get a DLC announcement soon.

Also, I see a lot of people saying there was no auto-saving or anything, but that's not true... there was no save & quit feature like the one just added, but the game has always auto saved quite frequently. All of you're permanent upgrades, weapon experience, data logs, etc. auto saves all the time. I imagine most are just referring to a save and quit option, but I wanted to clarify as I've seen several people who thought literally nothing ever saved and you're starting from zero every time you die lol.

And it's totally cool to see yet another Returnal thread with plenty of concern trolling over $70 price for a game that's already seen multiple sales and discounts less than 6 months after launch. That disingenuous bullshit hasn't gotten old at all 🙃

Not a fan of the price increase this gen either, but just don't buy the game day 1 then. Everything other than Nintendo games can easily be found for $40 (or less) if you just wait. Usually not even a year afterwards. I don't see why this topic has to derail literally every Playstation game thread now, like it has been for the last year.

 

[ElephantShell]

Good. Hope people for whom this was a deal-breaker get to now enjoy this great game.

 

[JusDoIt]

Can anyone else confirm that this update broke the Doombringer alt-fire's ability to take down the orange barriers that lock off some side rooms? I'm here letting mine charge up over and over and firing it at a barrier with no results like a dingus.

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There's an intended artifact that allows you to open the orange barriers. I've never known the Doombringer to open them. May it did, but I never tried because the intended way was always more accessible.

 

[MegaSackman]

This

While I loved the game, and it's my personal GOTY alongside Dread, I think they took a bit too far leaving pretty much everything up for interpretation.

There is a bit of difference between been mysterious and even subjective. However, the points in the story just don't connect. The ending leaves you with more questions than answers. Even if you dive deep into log ship and glyphs (I did), you still cannot put together two sentences that are true to the "real story". Basically, you can make up anything for the story. The entire game could be just a dog dreaming or whatever.

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I lived every phase with it but in the end I like that you can form your own conclusion without being wrong because there's no definitive correct storyline. What you do can pinpoint are the themes.

 

[JusDoIt]

This

While I loved the game, and it's my personal GOTY alongside Dread, I think they took a bit too far leaving pretty much everything up for interpretation.

There is a bit of difference between been mysterious and even subjective. However, the points in the story just don't connect. The ending leaves you with more questions than answers. Even if you dive deep into log ship and glyphs (I did), you still cannot put together two sentences that are true to the "real story". Basically, you can make up anything for the story. The entire game could be just a dog dreaming or whatever.

Having said that, playing it for the first time and just experiencing the world, the environments and trying to figure thing out, still was very enjoyable. I still keep playing the game after more than 60h, doing random runs just because the game is insanely fun.

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I agree with this. One of my favorite games and some of the story elements are of the most memorable ever, but the storytelling is ultimately incoherent. It's hard to be invested in Selene's emotional journey when you don't even know what the nature of the journey is.

 

[Mung]

Suspend mode works very well. Seamless really. Good job Housemarque!

 

[Rag]

There's an intended artifact that allows you to open the orange barriers. I've never known the Doombringer to open them. May it did, but I never tried because the intended way was always more accessible.

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I know about the Blade Balancer. The Doombringer is a nice way to get at those barriers when you can't afford the Blade Balancer or it hasn't shown up yet.

 

[TransEuropaExpress]

Basically, you can make up anything for the story. The entire game could be just a dog dreaming or whatever.

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This. It's literally one of my favorite games of all time by now but I just ended up coming up with my whole own interpretation because, even after hours spent poring over Databank entries and cutscenes etc., I really think most interpretations are just as valid as the next. You can really cherry-pick every aspect and say 'yeah but THIS is actually true!'. I think it's up to the player somewhat unfortunately to come up with their own interpretation completely.

 

[8byte]

The game frequently crashed for many players, the online component was entirely deactivated because it straight-up did not work, even just using the preorder skins would guarantee a gamebreaking bug, and so on and so on. I played the game at launch and it was full of infuriating, unacceptable issues. Housemarque had to publish tutorials to disable automatic updates on your whole PS5 just so people could circumvent the idiotic save situation.

I obviously don't give a fuck about the photomode and am not talking about that.

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Might I suggest you take up programming as a hobby, debug it yourself, and then send it out to thousands of people without any bugs at all?

Because I feel like that's the only way you're going to gain any perspective on the matter.

 

[QuigleyMcShine]

I mean, I've seen plenty of people say that even their later runs took 3+ hours. I play other games, my kid plays games, 3+ hours would greatly restrict when I could play the game.

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You could definitely have 2-3 hour runs if you're exploring every side room and playing semi-conservatively, but in my experienced my runs got shorter/faster as I got closer to finishing the game. 40-60 minutes feels more accurate.

Anyway it's cool they added a save option and I hope more people play the hell out of this excellent game now.

 

[Poldino]

The game frequently crashed for many players, the online component was entirely deactivated because it straight-up did not work, even just using the preorder skins would guarantee a gamebreaking bug, and so on and so on. I played the game at launch and it was full of infuriating, unacceptable issues. Housemarque had to publish tutorials to disable automatic updates on your whole PS5 just so people could circumvent the idiotic save situation.

I obviously don't give a fuck about the photomode and am not talking about that.

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full of infuriating, unacceptable issues.

The game was just fine, it had some issues like most of the games which launched during the pandemic, but it was a solid experience overall since D1. Enough with the drama

 

[SUBZERO-08]

What are the QoL changes this patch included as well?

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Good but a six month wait to suspend games is pretty ridiculous.

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Never assume these things are easy to implement. In fact, something "simple" like this most assuredly broke a fuck ton of things that had to be thoroughly tested and debugged since this feature wasn't originally in. I remember reading how one game's "simple" skip cutscene feature broke almost everything afterwards. Due to limited time, the dev couldn't figure out why this happened and had to ship with unskippable cutscenes as a result. Game development is hard.

 

[Darryl M R]

I'm excited to jump back in and finish

 

[Loudninja]

 

[Tailesque]

Now y'all got not excuse. Go play the GOTY.

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But I don't have and can't get a PS5. Believe me, I want to play Returnal. Badly.

 

[Jarsonot]

Sweet, been waiting for this. Bought!

 

[PowerBar]

With that suspend mode I'm really interested to try it out.

 

[ghibli99]

Been a long time since I've played this. Hoping the muscle memory kicks in somewhat soon. LOL Did almost beat Phrike with the base peashooter though, so slowly but surely. Suspend feature gives much-needed peace of mind to players like me who can only play for like 10-15 minutes at a time.

 

[Deleted member 61531]

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I suspect that photo mode and suspend mode are probably quite closely related technically, which is why we saw these two delivered together. They do functionally similar things for very different purposes.

 

[8bit]

Can anyone else confirm that this update broke the Doombringer alt-fire's ability to take down the orange barriers that lock off some side rooms? I'm here letting mine charge up over and over and firing it at a barrier with no results like a dingus.

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I didn't know that was a thing!

 

[Rag]

I didn't know that was a thing!

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In the early stages of a run, I'll keep a mental map of any weapon I find with a Doombringer so that I can warp back and grab it for barriers, even if my main weapon is better.

 

[Neobunch]

You can do this on any Souls games and no one is complaining...

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Funny thing is, the first ever Souls game, Demon Souls on the PS3, did pioneer the use of a save file locked to the machine, specifically to prevent save scumming, I presume.
But then, for some reason, when cloud saves became a thing, it would appear savefiles can no longer be locked to the console. By the time Dark Souls rolled around and onward, yeah save scumming on those games has been the norm, particularly when doing some trophies.
So, to address your comment, maybe Miyazaki (the biggest figure behind the series) is silently complaining, but he no longer has a technical recourse to prevent it.

Well I'm glad more people will experience my current GOTY. Seems like a reasonable compromise to prevent save scumming.

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They went with such an extreme design in the beginning as it was the only way to prevent save scumming. Now that they've compromised -ever so slightly- on the save front, the save scumming floodgates have been opened, can't prevent it in any way.

 

[Waters]

Funny thing is, the first ever Souls game, Demon Souls on the PS3, did pioneer the use of a save file locked to the machine, specifically to prevent save scumming, I presume.
But then, for some reason, when cloud saves became a thing, it would appear savefiles can no longer be locked to the console. By the time Dark Souls rolled around and onward, yeah save scumming on those games has been the norm, particularly when doing some trophies.
So, to address your comment, maybe Miyazaki (the biggest figure behind the series) is silently complaining, but he no longer has a technical recourse to prevent it.

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You could not (and i think still cant) use USB drive to backup DS save file on Ps3, but im pretty sure you can use the cloud

There were other games that worked the same way

 

[Rhaknar]

got a very decent run going with 2 x full health, 2 x revives, and an assortment of good artifacts, plus a big healing item, parked at the start of the last zone now because I have to go to work soon, good a time as any to try this suspend thing.

see, that's all I wanted (all most of us wanted I assume), was that so hard Housemarque? :(

In the early stages of a run, I'll keep a mental map of any weapon I find with a Doombringer so that I can warp back and grab it for barriers, even if my main weapon is better.

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didn't know this was a thing and sounds like it was a bug tbh, kinda negates the artifact to do it properly. Although I think it should have been one of the permanent upgrades, but I digress...

 

[Lord Error]

They went with such an extreme design in the beginning as it was the only way to prevent save scumming. Now that they've compromised -ever so slightly- on the save front, the save scumming floodgates have been opened, can't prevent it in any way.

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I haven't checked if Returnal is doing it, but it may be possible to save a file outside of a Save-Game space. If they can do that, backing up a save file won't do anything.

I know that people get befuddled why anyone would care about save scumming, in a sense that if you don't want to do it, just don't do it - but there's a certain level of dread that comes from not having comfort of knowing that you can cheat your way out, when you think you got totally stuck. No save backup, no cheat that you can load on a PC version of the game. Nothing you can do other than keep trying. I would argue that is in fact the scariest part of this game, and I think they recognize that, and it's the reason they've resisted adding save & quit.

 

[Kizuna]

Installed the new patch earlier today, played for a bit (hunting down the last few ciphers in biome 2 to get the platinum and doing the daily challenge), closed the game and put my console into rest mode as usual. Didn't use the suspend function.

Came back to play a couple hours later, and the game won't boot up past the studio logo, says my save is corrupted. Tried rebooting the console and overwriting the save in console memory with the one from the cloud – same deal.

Are we really doing Save Corrupting Update 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, Housemarque? Honestly, I'm so done with their half-cooked patches.

So yeah, watch out if you're planning on updating. Not sure how common the problem is, but I've just lost a save with 35 hours of playtime, a couple trophies away from the plat, and I'm pissed off as hell.

 

[Pancho]

Oh hey I finally get to play this. I live in an extremely unstable place, power wise, ever since Hurricane Maria. You get random black outs whenever so I didn't even bother with this game. This really was a dumb oversight but I am glad they finally added it

 

[DC5remy]

Installed the new patch earlier today, played for a bit (hunting down the last few ciphers in biome 2 to get the platinum and doing the daily challenge), closed the game and put my console into rest mode as usual. Didn't use the suspend function.

Came back to play a couple hours later, and the game won't boot up past the studio logo, says my save is corrupted. Tried rebooting the console and overwriting the save in console memory with the one from the cloud – same deal.

Are we really doing Save Corrupting Update 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, Housemarque? Honestly, I'm so done with their half-cooked patches.

So yeah, watch out if you're planning on updating. Not sure how common the problem is, but I've just lost a save with 35 hours of playtime, a couple trophies away from the plat, and I'm pissed off as hell.

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can't you delete local saves and download the save from cloud?

 

[Lord Error]

Installed the new patch earlier today, played for a bit (hunting down the last few ciphers in biome 2 to get the platinum and doing the daily challenge), closed the game and put my console into rest mode as usual. Didn't use the suspend function.

Came back to play a couple hours later, and the game won't boot up past the studio logo, says my save is corrupted. Tried rebooting the console and overwriting the save in console memory with the one from the cloud – same deal.

Are we really doing Save Corrupting Update 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, Housemarque? Honestly, I'm so done with their half-cooked patches.

So yeah, watch out if you're planning on updating. Not sure how common the problem is, but I've just lost a save with 35 hours of playtime, a couple trophies away from the plat, and I'm pissed off as hell.

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Oh crap no. Did you have auto cloud sync enabled for the game? If you did, the corrupted save was uploaded to cloud as soon as you put the console in rest mode -_-

 

[HardRojo]

Installed the new patch earlier today, played for a bit (hunting down the last few ciphers in biome 2 to get the platinum and doing the daily challenge), closed the game and put my console into rest mode as usual. Didn't use the suspend function.

Came back to play a couple hours later, and the game won't boot up past the studio logo, says my save is corrupted. Tried rebooting the console and overwriting the save in console memory with the one from the cloud – same deal.

Are we really doing Save Corrupting Update 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, Housemarque? Honestly, I'm so done with their half-cooked patches.

So yeah, watch out if you're planning on updating. Not sure how common the problem is, but I've just lost a save with 35 hours of playtime, a couple trophies away from the plat, and I'm pissed off as hell.

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Damn, that sounds bad. Hope it's not a common issue and that you can recover your save somehow.

 

[MisterAnderson]

It needs more content everywhere, the fact that the area count is really low but even then 2 of them use mostly recycled enemies kind of killed the pace for me. Until then I was excited to see the new enemy variety and area design, but the 2nd half of the game feels kind of uninspired until you reach the last area.

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If Returnal is uninspired in any sense of the word... *looks at all other games that exist* goodluck.gif

(Would still love more of it of course, bring on DLC/more content!)

 

[Kizuna]

can't you delete local saves and download the save from cloud?

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The PS5 deleted the local save automatically after it detected that it was corrupted.
I wrote in my original post that I did download the save from the cloud and put it on my local machine, but I had auto-sync on, so it was the same corrupted save at the end of the day.

Oh crap no. Did you have auto cloud sync enabled for the game? If you did, the corrupted save was uploaded to cloud as soon as you put the console in rest mode -_-

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Yeah, I did, unfortunately.

 

[dralla]

Oh hey I finally get to play this. I live in an extremely unstable place, power wise, ever since Hurricane Maria. You get random black outs whenever so I didn't even bother with this game. This really was a dumb oversight but I am glad they finally added it

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fyi. If you get a blackout during your run you're still going to lose your progress. This update doesn't auto save, it just lets you suspend your run so you can exit the game without it having reset your progress.