One of the major criticisms of Returnal, when it was released earlier this year exclusively on PS5, was the lack of a save option, well that looks to be changing in the game’s 2.0 update.
The changes coming to Housemarque’s recently released game were revealed on the PlayStation Blog by game director Harry Krueger. The most notable change is a newly added system called ‘Suspend Cycle’ which will allow players to temporarily save and quit their progress and continue their run later when they return to the game.
The new feature is a welcomed addition as it addresses a complaint that the game was facing at launch. After more than six months the game finally has a save option like other roguelike games, but the game’s director is stressing that the feature isn’t a traditional ‘save’ option but rather is a single-use save state.
“By suspending the cycle, Returnal will simply create a single-use suspend point, and once you resume playing the suspend point is deleted and cannot be used again. Your game will continue directly from the moment you left it, and if you want to suspend the cycle again, your progress will be captured from that new point onwards,” Krueger said, explaining the Suspend cycle in a PlayStation Blog post.
“With this approach, we can keep the roguelike spirit and ‘high stakes’ commitment to your run intact, while still providing some quality-of-life convenience for players who like to experience Returnal in shorter bursts.”
With that said, players will not be able to suspend the cycle in certain moments in the game, which include boss battles, cinematics, first-person sequences and intense combat. It’s sounding like the game’s newly added save option can only be implemented during less stressful times during a run in the game. The feature has been almost a six-month wait, but it’s nice to actually have the option.
That’s not it for the update as it will also finally add a photo mode as well which functions similarly to in other games. This will allow players at any point in the game, minus first-person sequences, to pause the game and pan around the frozen environment to take a photo of the action. The mode also includes advanced adjustment options like different filters/light sources, focal distance, aperture, saturation and contrast.
Returnal was released exclusively on PS5 back in April, the 2.0 update is rolling out today for PS5 users.
