Today Sony Interactive Entertainment and Housemarque had a reveal to make for the upcoming PS5 game Returnal.
We get to see a batch of screenshots and a trailer focusing on combat, which certainly appears to be rather exciting.
A piece on the PlayStation Blog from creative director Harry Krueger also provides more information.
You can find all the details and assets below.
From lightning to tentacles
Selene will have many weapons and devices at her disposal to survive on the hostile alien planet Atropos. Some she’s brought with her – others she’s found and made her own. The above video shows some of the various abilities you’ll find while playing Returnal which we’ll dive into below.
The game features a number of base weapons that are augmented as you play. For example, the living Spitmaw Blaster weapon starts as a shotgun archetype you all know and love. As you progress, you’ll unlock and add on various Weapon Traits, each providing a unique gameplay modifier to the base weapon’s behavior. These Weapon Traits are custom tailored for each gun type – so your Spitmaw Blaster might gain exploding shells or generate acid pools upon impact; while the Electropylon Driver might extract extra loot from enemies, or generate shields for the player. These Weapon Traits will also stack, so the combined effects can lead to many surprising results that can have unique advantages and playstyles to explore.
Each weapon will also have an alt-fire mode randomly assigned to it from our diverse pool, ranging from the electrical impulses of the Shockstream to the tentacles of the Tendrilpod, and everything in between.
These can be used without ever taking your finger off the trigger using the default control scheme: with the adaptive trigger on the DualSense controller, just press L2 halfway to aim down the sights and use the main fire of your weapon, and squeeze it all the way down to enter your alt-fire mode.
With 10 base weapons, more than 90 Weapon Traits (each with three levels)and 10 alt-fires, there are numerous weapon combinations to test out on your journey.
While new weapon drops are frequent, Selene can only hold one weapon at a time, so your choice is important. Different challenges and enemies will also require different strategies to overcome, so you’ll need to be constantly adapting, experimenting with different weapons, and developing your skills to survive on the hostile planet of Atropos.
Making progress
For Selene, death is no escape. Each death sends Selene to the start of the time loop, just moments before crashing on the planet. Most abilities and items collected on the previous cycle will be lost…but not all of them. Some persist across sessions, so you’ll still make progress every cycle.