Revisiting Returnal's brutal beauty

Death is no escape.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, Returnal is the perfect path to madness.

In Housemarque’s 2021 game, you play as Selene, an astronaut who crash-lands on the beautiful and barbaric planet of Atropos after following a strange broadcast. When she leaves the wreckage in search of answers and stumbles across her own corpse, you learn that Selene hasn’t just been here before, she’s died here too.

Therein lies Returnal’s foundation.

Every time death finds you, you start again, looping back in time to the crash. When you do, the world around you has shifted but, armed with new knowledge you can use to survive, so have you.

It’s relentless, unforgiving, underpinned by an emotional story of change, and a game I’ve not stopped thinking about since I finished it almost two years ago.

Be warned, spoilers ahead.

Nightmares on the hunt

Returnal’s world is vicious. It’s deadly and full of threat, and its enemy design plays an integral foundation in creating that feeling.

In this interview, Game Director Harry Krueger talks about wanting to create something that looked otherworldly and unique, referencing the ocean as inspiration.

“There is something inherently unsettling and foreign about the deep-sea as an environment for us,” he says. “The way these creatures move deep underwater, with their long tentacles and bioluminescent highlights, can often appear majestic, beautiful, and downright terrifying.”

It’s true. In the game, monsters are majestic, beautiful, terrifying, moving in ways that are aggressive, shooting waves of bright lights that could kill you. However, it’s only by spending time with these horrors that you get to know their personalities. That, in itself, is the charm of Returnal.

The more time you spend with the game’s enemies in their habitat, the more you learn about them. An ominous mass of slippery tendrils becomes something you understand. A bruise on the horizon becomes a reminder that you’ve done this before. Uncertainty is replaced with preparedness.

This isn’t the sort of horror experience where you’re navigating tight corridors or working with limited ammo. Your ammo’s unlimited and you have the ability to traverse terrain with speed.

The movement is smooth and there’s a fluidity to everything that feels satisfying. It takes a bit to get used to but once it clicks, it becomes muscle memory – a dance, almost, that you get lost in.

It becomes instinctive, the way you anticipate how enemies move, how tentacles reshape themselves, and how every nightmare hunts.

Brutal and beautiful biomes

Returnal is split into biomes – six in total – each with its own personality, threat, and sense of intrigue. Even without its enemies, Returnal’s settings are oppressive and unsettling in their own right.

Where Overgrown Ruins feels wet, with abandoned monoliths and unruly vegetation, Crimson Wastes is arid and dusty, like the surface of Mars. The soundscape of each supports that, offering a sonic experience that oozes hostility and makes it all feel alive.

Its last biome, Abyssal Scar, has particular impact. With its inky depths and vast darkness, it’s one of the best depictions of an ocean I’ve ever seen in gaming.

In the same interview mentioned above, Krueger talks about combining “chaotic beauty and nightmarish aggression.” While he was referring to enemies, those feelings are true of the environments too.

Loss and loneliness

A constant theme that emerges when playing Returnal is loneliness. Twisted creatures try to kill you. Ancient architecture tells a story of the past. You navigate the planet alone until you stumble across your corpse; a cutting reminder that you failed.

In short, Returnal doesn’t hold back in letting you know your only hope is your own.

However, that led to me finding an odd sense of company in the scout logs scattered throughout, left by earlier versions of Selene. Some you’ll find as the story progresses. Others, you’ll have to die enough to discover.

They’re atmospheric, well-written, and important pieces of information that feel like micro horror stories in their own right.

As the one titled Arrival reads:

“My end is waiting at the beginning, abandoned like Helios.

Last drive.

Failed escape.

Fatal crash.

My memories have been rearranged into spiral patterns I cannot comprehend, dragging me into the deepest of the deep.

I will go there now.

As you will.”

Collectibles in a game are either hit or miss. They either feed the world or make it look sparse. The deeper I ventured into Returnal, and the more I sensed its abandonment, the more I found these collectible fed the narrative.

They were important. There was a weight to them. I felt I needed them to understand why I was there and what it all meant.

Once more with feeling

For me, the best horror is meaningful. It goes beyond cheap thrills to tell an interesting story or explores a dynamic between or within people.

There’s no denying Returnal is stunning and its moment-to-moment gameplay is compelling. ‘One more run’ becomes a consistent false promise.

But it’s also underpinned by an engaging and profound narrative with enough depth to inspire articles about what the ending really means, and a slew of fan theories online. I don’t want to cover what those are because, spoilers or not, it’s worth experiencing for yourself.

Throughout your playthrough of Returnal, you’ll spend most of your time on the move, dodging unruly tentacles and waves of orbs, trying to memorise places that won’t stay the same.

Know that there is more here.

There are times where the freneticism stops. Times where you’re drawn into painful memories and moments from Selene’s past. Times where you have to walk the floors of an abandoned house. Only then, do you appreciate how much thought has gone into Returnal. How many of the nuances are tied together.

This isn’t just a game where you run around shooting monsters. This is a haunting story about trauma, grief, and what it’s like to be stuck in an endless loop of hell.

Before you go

This feature lives under the GHOST CURRENT section of AFTER DUSK, which explores the scary side of gaming. If you’d like to read about the books I’m enjoying, projects I’m working on, or what else has been inspiring me, feel free to check out the rest of AFTER DUSK here.

If you want to connect, I live in other corners of the internet. I keep an Instagram updated. You can also find me on TikTok.

/ JJW