Highlights

  • Returnal's immersive storytelling centered around Selene makes a direct sequel or prequel unlikely.
  • Like Silent Hill, Returnal could become an anthology series, exploring different characters' trauma on various planets and expanding its sci-fi universe.

Besides its upcoming Dark Horse graphic novel adaptation, Housemarque’s Returnal doesn’t seem to be an IP Sony is pulling from its shelf any time soon. Returnal was highly popular at launch and, like Supergiant’s Hades, helped redefine roguelikes as a vessel for intimate character-driven storytelling. Still, there’s no telling if it’ll ever have a sequel or spin-off to continue its legacy.

Returnal’s story was incredibly tight-knit and inseparable from protagonist Selene, so a direct sequel or prequel seems unlikely if not narratively improbable. There are many ways Returnal’s gameplay could be expanded on, but its story would need to take a considerable detour if it wasn’t going to continue harping on Selene’s trauma and grief somehow. In this case, no franchise has been more in tune with characters’ grief and trauma than Silent Hill, and future Returnal installments could surely draw inspiration from how the psychological horror franchise has gone about its consecutive games’ loose continuity.

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Silent Hill’s Bleak, Traumatic Tone is Prevalent in Returnal

Silent Hill is more or less a loose anthology with fewer explicit narrative connections between installments besides Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3. This wasn’t the only reason it was successful, but it was certainly a boon when it came to portraying different characters within the same world who aren’t connected in any way aside from being under the same Silent Hill banner.

The town invites applicable characters and dwells on their psychological issues, essentially warping the town and its grisly inhabitants into reflections of the character’s psyche. Characters can interact with one another there, and yet Silent Hill seems most profound when each entry tells a distilled story centering on one protagonist, such as James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2.

This isn’t much different from Selene’s experience on Atropos, where the cyclical cosmic horror she endures is tailored specifically to her subconscious. Returnal’s gameplay couldn’t be more different than a Silent Hill game, but it’s undeniable that its storytelling and atmosphere evoke a similar sense of dread and introspection as Silent Hill does.

Returnal also has the same sort of convoluted storytelling approach as Silent Hill ; the unreliable narrator being the protagonist players view Silent Hill through, and with many interpretations about what certain enemies or creatures could represent for that character.

Returnal Can Be an Anthology Series Like Silent Hill

If Returnal ever resurfaces with a sequel and not merely a Dark Horse comic book adaptation, it could behave in the same way and expand on the deep-space psychological science-fiction it’s established by depicting a new character whose personal life and trauma could tether them to Atropos like characters become tethered to the titular Silent Hill, if not some other planet or cosmic prison.

All Housemarque would need to justify is that another astronaut or explorer stumbled upon another planet and all of its new biomes, depictions, and allusions could be adapted to a new character’s story. Like Silent Hill, Returnal could continue to unravel new protagonists’ narratives as players progress with the core loop of science-fiction roguelike bullet hell gameplay never becoming stale.

Roguelikes aren’t as niche as they were back when Returnal originally launched and yet it pioneered roguelikes’ popularity in mainstream gaming; therefore, a second Returnal would be a wonderful surprise and if it took a Silent Hill-esque anthology approach it could get a ton of mileage out of its immersive gameplay. This might be the only feasible way for Returnal to go on, anyway, since its narrative pigeonholes itself otherwise—only time will tell if Returnal is an IP Sony wants to recycle or not.