So Returnal, which is arguably the best exclusive for the PS5 (yes, I know there are like four games that are PS5 exclusive), has been ported to PC and has been available for a little while now. Housemarque’s Roguelike met critical acclaim when it was first released back on April 30, 2021. Having played it on PS5, I immediately saw why it was so highly regarded, but as a predominantly PC player, I couldn’t help but feel that this game was the perfect game to bring to PC, and with every leak regarding the PC port of this game, it became one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets. With it now on PC let me just say, it feels right at home on the platform, and is probably the best place to enjoy it.
Now let me preface everything I am about to say with this: I am in no way knocking the original release of Returnal on the PS5. Regardless of the platform, Returnal always has been and always will be an exceptional game. Housemarque absolutely killed it with this title and the subsequent updates they rolled out to address people’s complaints about the game (suspending your cycle, for example) show they care about producing and maintaining something special. This just talks about how porting such a great game to PC makes it even better for people like me who get incredibly frustrated with the restrictive nature of Sony’s platform.
Going into playing this game on PC I was a little concerned about the minimum and recommended specifications as it really seemed like my poor old computer that I built in 2017 was going to really struggle, especially with how good Returnal looked on the PS5 – a system that is notably more powerful than my dusty old rig. Housemarque recommended a system with an Intel i7-8700K/Ryzen 7 2700X as the CPU and an RTX 2070 Super/Radeon 6700XT as the GPU and 16GB of RAM. These specs sit right on my PC specs, if not a tiny bit above as the RTX 2070 Super has access to performance-enhancing technologies like NVIDIA’s DLSS technology, which can be tuned to strike a balance between visual quality and performance.
Thankfully, while the performance was not perfect, it was great enough that it improved an experience that I already enjoyed. Returnal is a game best played at higher framerates, there are no two ways about that. Any game that asks the player to quickly react to changes in combat is just functionally better at higher framerates. But even moving past that, the fluidity that higher framerates afford to you benefits the motion of Returnal. Housemarque is known for developing bullet hell titles and the DNA of that genre is absolutely present in Returnal. Ensuring that the game ran at a stable 60fps on the PS5 was vital to ensuring that the game was as beautiful to watch as it is to play, and the motion of the bullet hell arguably benefits the most from higher and higher framerates.
I ran the game on High settings using my 1080p Ultrawide display (2560×1080) on the aforementioned PC and, for the most part, I was at or above 60fps while playing. There were areas where the frames dipped, especially in the later parts of the game as it became increasingly demanding. The thing is the frames dipping never really felt like an issue with optimisation and it was entirely reasonable. Density in foliage increased, enemy attacks became more and more complex, and orbs for me to dodge started filling more and more of the screen. Even with all this, and the dip in the framerate, the game at no point ever felt unresponsive, which can’t be said for other recent releases on PC (read: Wild Hearts). Most PCs built in the last couple of years should be able to crush the performance on this game, meaning an incredible experience awaits.
In terms of actual gameplay, playing this felt so much better using mouse and keyboard [M&K] controls compared to a controller for me. I’m not here to say one control method is better than the other, as it is a matter of different strokes for different folks. But given that I am predominantly a PC player, shooters just feel so much more comfortable for me using M&K and given how fast your reactions are supposed to be in Returnal it just fits. Being able to more precisely whip around and react to what is happening around you just makes this game feel so much better in its moment-to-moment gameplay, and this is just improving on an experience that already ruled using a controller on the PS5.
In terms of general flexibility, this port is exceptional. You have your usual settings that can be changed around, as is to be expected with a PC port. The thing I wasn’t really expecting was a Field of View slider, as I never really felt that the game needed it, but it was nice to have regardless. There are, of course, other PC niceties, like the availability of resolution scaling technology and super sampling tech too – think Dynamic Resolution Scaling or NVIDIA’s DLSS. Regardless of whether you are Team Green or Team Red (or Team Blue, I guess), this game has options for you. For people with lower-end systems that are worried that they will need to make the game look like junk, even at the lowest settings the game looks great. The biggest things you will notice are just less foliage and grass/plants around, but the game still looks perfectly fine and the gain in framerate is sizeable.
One great benefit of this game being on PC is breathing life into the cooperative mode that is available. I’m aware that some people went back to Returnal and played this mode when it became available, but it was largely ignored in comparison to how many eyes were on the game when it first launched – I legitimately never heard anyone that I knew loved the game talk about co-op. With all the updated and added content being a part of the PC release, it gives this content a chance to actually thrive with a new audience. There is also the bonus that on PC you don’t need to pay for an additional subscription to play the multiplayer portion of games you have already purchased, but that’s a discussion for another day.
The biggest note of flexibility, however, comes from the modding community. It’s no secret that when you release a game on PC you open up the gates for people to modify the game in various ways. One of the most notable mods of a PC port in recent history is the Simpsons mod for God of War which did the rounds shortly after the PC release of Santa Monica Studios’ 2018 hit. Returnal is not an exception to this trend, and mods already exist for this game and are mostly aimed at altering or tailoring the experience to better fit how some other people wish to enjoy it. I may not personally wish to change or modify the experience in any capacity, but I’m not going to be the person that tells other people they can’t do that. This game may not be for everyone in its vanilla state and that is perfectly fine. These mods make a game that might be too much for someone just that little bit more approachable, which is a great thing.
All in all, I was really glad to be able to give Returnal another go on a platform better suited to me. I’ve always had a love for this game, and was very excited to dive back into it on PC once rumours of this port began to circulate. It is my favourite of all the Sony PC ports currently out there both in terms of how good the game itself actually is and how well-made the port itself is. Housemarque nailed it. Now it’s time for Sony to bring Bloodborne to PC (please).
