Almost a year after its release, Returnal is about to receive a big update. Good news for the Housemarque title which was struggling to keep us on the game, however excellent, the fault of an endgame that was a little too thin. Entitled “Ascension”, this update will arrive quite quickly since it is scheduled for March 22.
Co-op and Infinite mode on the program
The first addition to note and which surprises a little concerns the arrival of a cooperation mode. Accustomed to wandering alone on Atropos, Selene will be able to count on a double of herself, thus allowing two players to brave together the dangers of this pitiless planet. This feature applies to the entire game, except for the story phases inside the house and the daily challenges, and is only available to PlayStation Plus subscribers.
In cooperation, the two partners will not be able to get too far from each other, and if one dies, the other will be able to revive him, if however a window presents itself. Progress of the current game will match that of the host, and the person who joined will keep the audio files or xenoglyphs that he may have collected during this session as a guest. We can therefore conclude that this is in some way a response from Housemarque to the regrets linked to accessibility, since a part of the players forced to give up in the face of too great a difficulty now have the opportunity to give the game a second chance.
The MAJ also welcomes the Tower of Sisyphus, exclusively playable in solo and accessible after unlocking the Icarian grappling hook. This building has an infinite number of phases, which are broken down into 20 floors where enemies and increasingly formidable dangers swarm as you climb. In other words, it is a Infinity mode who will test your skill in the game more than ever. At the end of each phase, we will face a new boss named Algos, who will also be more and more powerful with each encounter.
This mode also brings a scoring system accompanied by a leaderboard, with a multiplier that will climb over the eliminations, and which will fall each time you get hit or in the event of too long a delay without having done any damage. So here we are before a typically arcade challenge inscribed in the purest DNA of Housemarque. Cherry on the cake, new script elements are also appearing within this tower.
Returnal is available on PlayStation 5 and will therefore inherit this “Ascension” update on March 22.