Housemarque’s 2021 hit, Returnal, is a third-person shooter roguelike video game for the PlayStation 5, and it is getting another major update. This is the first major update that Returnal is getting after the cooperative multiplayer mode and the new area called the Tower of Sisyphus were added in March of this year.
Housemarque points out that the update balances the difficulty in the Tower of Sisyphus and it seems that there are some bug fixes related to both the Tower of Sisyphus as well as the co-op mode. The full details of the balance changes are not fleshed out, though, and the update does raise some questions about what exactly is being changed in the new area of the game.
Though it may not be clear exactly what is being changed, Housemarque does say that the leaderboards will be reset, which suggests that the fixes and balance changes are quite substantial. The 20 floors in the Tower of Sisyphus progress with increasing challenge and so the players will find increasingly powerful weapon and equipment upgrades. Also, players with an active Playstation Plus subscription can play co-op multiplayer using the Chronosis station.
In both of these game modes, Returnal‘s roguelike, bullet-hell gameplay, environmental storytelling, beautiful soundtrack, effective use of the DualSense Wireless Controller’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback functions, and many other qualities shine through to provide an enjoyable experience for the player. The update will fix some bugs and work to balance the Tower of Sisyphus to augment this as well.
Although many players find the difficulty spikes in Returnal to sometimes be insurmountable, the fresh set of challenges in the Tower of Sisyphus as well as the added enjoyment of playing cooperatively with another player add to the overall enjoyment of a playthrough. Housemarque continues to work hard to update the game for the fans in order to make sure that players are able to have the most seamless and enjoyable experience on Atropos.
Returnal Update 3.03 Patch Notes:
- Tower of Sisyphus: Added Audio Log 94 to additional location in the tower
- Tower of Sisyphus: Fixed a rare issue where Algos might refuse to die, or die too early in the tower
- Tower of Sisyphus: Increased leaderboard scrolling speed
- Co-Op: Fixed several issues where a client or host might encounter a black screen or hang when moving between biomes during co-op play
- Co-Op: Fixed multiple minor gameplay bugs
- Co-Op: Fixed two rare crashes in co-op mode
Returnal is available now on PS5.
