Returnal's recent 2.0 update finally gave players a method to suspend their game, turn off their PS5, and return to the suspend point to continue their run. The catch? That suspend point erases when you return, meaning you can still absolutely bungle a run in the next area and have to run through the lengthy, punishing roguelike world all over again. Now players have discovered an exploit that turns that suspend point into a full-blown save point can be reloaded again and again like the save scumming monsters we are.
As described by Inverse writer Joseph Yaden (and reported by Kotaku), the exploit requires you to suspend your save in-game, upload your save to PlayStation's cloud servers, and then when you die, download the save from the cloud. This will allow you to return to your suspend point as many times as you want as long as it's in the cloud, since it can't be erased.
A tedious chore? Sure, but not nearly as tedious as restarting a run in Returnal. One of the most common complaints leveled against Returnal was that its roguelike runs were so long that they could easily last over an hour or more. This made it even more difficult for players who had a limited amount of time to commit or had a distraction take their focus away. The only solution at the time was leaving your game running and putting your PS5 in standby mode, the lower-power state that lets you quickly pick up a game from where you left off.
It's worth noting that Returnal's suspend system won't let you save during boss battles, cinematics, first-person sequences, or "intense combat scenarios," so keep that in mind when planning your next run.
Hopefully this will let players get more snapshots from the other alien biomes, since the 2.0 update also added a photo mode to Returnal.
Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/scum for IGN. He says "hi, fellow Joseph" on Twitter.