Thrilling Combat and Setting Propel PS5 Exclusive Returnal to Game of the Year Contention Despite Shortcomings

Returnal is a third-person shooter developed by Housemarque. The game is a PlayStation 5 exclusive and is set to release later today. Currently, the game has managed to obtain a score of 86 on Metacritic, based on 83 reviews. It follows a space scout Selene trapped on the monstrous planet of Atropos. After every death, you will come back to life in an endless loop.

The GameInformer gave Housemarques latest creation a score of 95. They wrote, “Returnal is a relentless nightmare that’s a dream to play. The journey is full of horror and terrible discoveries, but also unbridled curiosity and wonder. If you have the taste for it, this is an adventure that begs to be experienced.”

Is Housemarque’s Returnal worthy of a Game of the Year award?

TheSixthAxis commented on how Housemarque has progressed as a developer. They remember “playing Super Stardust HD on PS3, and see just how far Housemarque has come. Offering a visual bullet hell spectacle, a showcase for the DualSense controller, and a rewarding sci-fi narrative woven around the roguelike loop, we can say with unflinching confidence that Returnal is the PS5’s best game to date.”

IGN is always tough critics of a game. Thus, when they gave Returnal a rating of 80, it displayed the game’s potential to be one of the best and biggest this year. In their review, they mentioned, “gameplay of Returnal is sublime, with a great selection of weapons that each have a wide variety of interesting possible traits, meaningful strategic decisions that can either keep a run afloat or doom it to sink, and punishingly challenging yet rewarding gunplay that is consistently exhilarating.”

Despite these various successes, Returnal has faced a host of criticisms. Many reviews point out that the game is extremely lengthy and taxing after some time. Other criticisms arise due to the lack of any difficulty setting, which can make the game extremely hard or easy based on a player’s skill.

Do you plan on purchasing Returnal on PlayStation when it releases? Do you think it has Game of the Year potential? Let us know in the comments down below.

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