Returnal has debuted on the PC with overall high praise from both critics and fans. While the port of the game went well, there are some technical issues with the game that need to be addressed, which is what the latest patch for Returnal aims to do.
Returnal was released on April 30, 2021, as a PS5 exclusive. The game was hailed by some fans for its unique gameplay loop, interesting story, and great gameplay mechanics. Returnal was a success for Sony, and the game went on to pick up numerous awards the same year, including a BAFTA for best game. However, given the recent influx of PlayStation exclusives ported to PC, some fans were desperate for a playable version of Returnal for PC.
While some fans are pleased with Returnal‘s PC port, there are a few minor issues that need to be addressed, which this recent patch does. This patch was a small one, as it was just to fix a few minor details, but these are all the fixes that the patch brought. The rare but common bug in which the music would stop when entering a new biome has been fixed, and importantly for wide-screen players, the game no longer has the error where it would not detect the entire screen.
That was all this patch had to address; other than minor bugs or some black screen issues, which again have been fixed, the port overall is a great success. While some fans have enjoyed the game, they claim that the hefty PC requirements for Returnal are too high for the majority of players and what they currently game on.
Simply because games such as Returnal really push the boundaries with hardware and game design, it is not surprising that the game is so demanding from a hardware perspective. While there is no denying that Returnal has some demanding requirements, this could be the case for even more of the PlayStation exclusives set to be released this year, such as The Last of Us Part 1, which is going to be released on March 23.
Overall, Sony seems to have found great success with porting its exclusives over to the PC market. It also appears that Sony’s overall strategy of diversification is paying off, as evidenced by the success of God of War 2018, Spider-Man, and Returnal‘s ports. Furthermore, it appears that branching out even further from just PC for Sony is also paying off, as the Last of Us TV show has been doing phenomenally well.
Returnal Patch Notes:
- Fix for rare issue with music stopping during Biome entry
- Fix for certain Ultra-wide monitor setups not being detected in Full Screen
- Fix for incorrectly detecting the Windows resolution on first boot
- Fix for grass draw distance on Epic Particle settings
- Fix for PSN Sign in time-outs
- Fix for Benchmark results rounding error
Returnal is available to play now on PC and PS5.
