Edwin Crump
At the release of the Playstation 5 in 2020, Returnal (2021) by recent Sony acquisition Housemarque was an excellent semi-launch title, featuring a presentation that would have been compromised on the Playstation 4 or even the Playstation 4 Pro.
Our PlayStation 5 review mentions it was an essential purchase too, and now PC gamers have an opportunity to dive deep into the world of Atropos.
Like many formerly-Playstation exclusive games, Returnal is making its way onto gaming PCs a couple of years after its initial release, complete with all the DLC and updates that have been added along the way.
The core game hasn’t changed, and retains its difficult, run-based bullet hell, horror-exploration tone of the original.
Returnal feels excellent on a PC, playing either with a controller or with a mouse and keyboard. In fact, the game feels noticeably easier with the increased accuracy that comes with having a direct pointing device, letting you hit enemy weak points with much more regularity. Having the freedom to choose your own controller is also helpful, and my 8BitDo Ultimate Controller worked perfectly with the title.
Having back paddles mapped to jump and dash let me control the Selena much better than with a standard DualSense controller. That said, there is native support for the DualSense special features when plugged in via USB (Sony, we’re waiting for a wireless dongle, please) so you won’t miss out if you want those features either.
Returnal was, thankfully, a 60FPS experience on Playstation 5.
So the usual PC upgrade in terms of increased frame rate is less pronounced here.
That said, playing at a stable 90FPS using Digital Foundry’s optimised settings really opened up the game and was a significant improvement to temporal acuity and overall game responsiveness.
Getting to higher than 60FPS settings is helped by the vast array of upscaling options, including a basic resolution slider, an internal solution called NIS, NVIDIA’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR. At 1440p Ultrawide on a 3070 at DLSS Quality, I can range anywhere from 90FPS upwards, making this a decent upgrade over the PS5 release. DLSS, and FSR, are substantial upgrades over the sometimes-muddy upscaling solution Returnal used on PS5, particularly viewed on a 4K screen.
With the introduction of higher quality settings in other areas as well, the end result is a much cleaner presentation that appears much sharper in the initially dark Atropos environs.
Unfortunately there are some downsides, and that is our old friend #stutterstruggle.
Even with a high-end CPU (13700KF) and NVMe drive (Samsung 980 Pro), and a locked frame rate to keep GPU utilisation under 100%, I found relatively constant stutters across my time of play. This seemed to occur as new data was loaded in while I opened doors or otherwise traversed across segments of the game’s map.
In a twitch-response bullet hell shooter these were very unwelcome, and I hope the developer can do more to iron out the frame rate graph. I was pleased however to see an initial PSO shader cache being built when I launched the game, so Housemarque are obviously aware of the issues stutters can cause.
I also had occasional crashes to the desktop resulting from a ‘fatal error’, often when the combat was at full tempo. While this could be attributable to oddities with my own setup, it occurred often enough to cause me concern.
At least Returnal put me right back where I left off without wiping my entire run when I relaunched the game.
As per the Playstation 5 original Returnal includes the ability to suspend/quick save a run so you can come back to it at another time. I do wish they had gone down the path of providing multiple save files, given the length of each run and the ability to better share the game with multiple players. But it seems it is a game design choice as much as anything so I don’t expect this to change in the near future.
A point for Steam Deck players – this is a title that simply overwhelms Valve’s otherwise- excellent handheld gaming PC, with the required GPU load simply too much for it to handle, even at compromised lower-than-low settings. It is a shame, as it would be a dream game to run portably, however we will have to settle for streaming the game for now.
I’m loving Sony’s newfound commitment to providing excellent PC ports of its first-party games.
While of course I would like to see them arrive day-and-date with release on Playstation 5, opening up in this way is a positive, seismic change for the company that embraces more gamers than Sony has proven willing to cater for previously.
Returnal is yet another notch in this new strategy’s belt, and now is undoubtedly the best way to play the game, if you have the GPU horsepower to get consistent performance.
Previous Sony releases, like Sackboy have had consistent patches and updates since launch, and I hope, thanks to the issues that I experienced, that Housemarque do the same.
Ultimately Returnal on PC is now the best way to play the game, and that is exactly what we want out
of this PC port.
Released: February 2023
Rating: M15+
Platform reviewed: PC
Genre: Action
Developer: Housemarque
Publisher: Sony Interactive