Game:

Returnal (2021)

Duration: 47:33

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Returnal is a roguelike video game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 5 on April 30, 2021 and Windows on February 15, 2023. The game follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut who lands on the planet Atropos in search of the mysterious "White Shadow" signal and finds herself trapped in a time loop. Returnal received generally favorable reviews for its visuals, combat, audio design and technical achievements, though its difficulty and roguelike design were met with mixed opinions. It won several end-year accolades, including Best Game at the 18th British Academy Games Awards. The game sold 560,000 units by July 2021.

Returnal is a third-person shooter video game featuring roguelike elements and covering the psychological horror genre.Set in a futuristic science fiction setting, the player controls Selene Vassos (Jane Perry), a space pilot, equipped with a suit and armed with high-tech weapons, who is stranded on the alien planet Atropos, and stuck in a time loop. After every death, Selene is resurrected, following a pattern of traversing foreign environments and combating extraterrestrial entities with growing visions in an ever changing world.

The game is split into two halves- each consisting of three biomes. If the player dies during a run, they are sent to the beginning of the half. Selene has the ability to dash and can later unlock a grappling hook that lets her shoot to predefined points in a room. Players can find a variety of weapons in the game, ranging from a basic pistol to an Electropylon Driver.Each weapon has unique traits that can be leveled up to unlock enhanced perks that can deal more damage. Selene additionally has a melee weapon that can be used to attack enemies, destroy resource geodes, or destroy barriers.

The Ascension update introduces online cooperative multiplayer, which allows up to two players to complete the game's campaign together.

Disobeying orders, ASTRA Corporation explorer Selene Vassos attempts to land on the off-limits planet of Atropos to investigate what she dubs the "White Shadow" signal, which somehow seems familiar to her. Upon arrival, Selene's ship Helios suffers heavy damage and crash lands. Unable to contact ASTRA, Selene explores the planet and is shocked when she comes across corpses of herself. She learns that every time she dies, time loops back to the moment she crashed, sending her back to her starting point. The planet seems to change with every loop, and Selene begins experiencing vivid visions.

Resolving to find the source of the White Shadow, Selene presses on, fighting hostile alien lifeforms and scavenging alien technology left over from the advanced, extinct alien civilization that used to reside on Atropos. As she tracks the White Shadow, Selene comes across what appears to be a replica of her childhood home. Every time she enters it, she recalls old memories and repeatedly encounters an astronaut wearing an antique space suit. Selene eventually learns that she apparently used an alien cannon to paradoxically shoot down her own ship which caused her to be stranded on Atropos.

Eventually, Selene tracks down the source of the White Shadow. Afterwards, ASTRA is able to receive her distress call and sends a rescue ship. Selene returns to Earth and eventually dies of old age, only to reawaken back on Atropos, having looped back to the crash. Dismayed that she has failed to escape Atropos, Selene continues to explore the planet. Eventually, her search leads her to an underwater abyss below the planet's surface, where she finds a replica of an old car.

She proceeds to the bottom of the abyss where she encounters a massive, octopus-like alien creature. She is then shown a vision of a middle-aged woman, who looks similar to Selene, driving through a forest at night with a young child (whose motion-capture actor is credited as "Helios" in the game's end credits) in the back seat. While passing over a bridge, the woman sees the astronaut standing in the middle of the road and swerves to avoid it, driving the car off the bridge and into the lake below. The woman attempts to reach the now unconscious child but is pulled out of the car by dark cloud-like tentacles. A first-person perspective of the lake surface from below is then shown. The cloud-like tentacles reappear, pulling the viewer away from the surface and deeper into the lake.

If the player then continues the game after the closing credits, and collects six artifacts called "Sunface Fragments", Selene can then return to her home and recover a set of car keys. She then opens the car and confronts a pregnant humanoid creature seated in a wheelchair. Selene fights off the creature and is transported back to the car crash from the perspective of the astronaut, implying that she is the astronaut that the driver swerved to avoid. Selene then finds herself underwater and swims to the surface, crying out the name "Helios" as she does

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