While video games are always a good time, every gaming session must come to an end at some point. Long time players have it ingrained in their memory to always save before quitting, so naturally players want to know how to do just that with Returnal. The short answer is that there is no way to manually save the game, but that doesn't mean that progress will be lost every time the player shuts it down. There are two main ways to save progress in the game that players will want to be aware of.
Because of its roguelite nature, there are only a few things that carry over between each cycle in Returnal. Certain weapons like the Atropian Blade and the like will remain no matter how many times the player dies. Players will need to know how to save these things as well as how to save their progress on an ongoing cycle.
Returnal uses autosave features to automatically save any permanent upgrade that the player has attained. Just by ending a cycle (either by dying or pausing and selecting restart cycle), all of the upgrades and permanent items they've received will be saved. Another way to end a cycle and save permanent progress is by simply closing the game, as this will also cause a new cycle to start when the player loads the game up again. This is great, but some players may want to break up a specific cycle into more than one session without having to start over.
For this, the PS5's rest mode will be the player's best friend. When the console is put in rest mode, the current cycle is just suspended rather than terminated completely. Later on when the player is ready to continue, simply waking the PS5 back up and launching the game should put them right back where they left off. From there they can continue their run as normal or opt to cut it short in order to go back and start a new cycle all over again.
This lack of manual saves has been a subject of controversy surrounding the game. Many fans feel that Returnal's save mechanics are too harsh, especially given the long nature of each cycle. Players familiar with other roguelite games will likely see it as standard, although even those players might agree that a cycle takes a bit longer than a standard run in many other roguelite games.
Returnal is available now on PS5.
