The official release of Returnal, the brand new roguelike of Housemarque exclusive PlayStation 5 that will come the next 30 April. Just yesterday a new story trailer was released, which told us a lot about the narrative structure of the title. Today, however, new details have emerged on the multiplayer mode of the game, in particular on the asynchronous mode. These are the words of the developers:
As shown in our trailer, Selene will discover the presence of her own corpses while scouting at Atropos. These corpses may contain projections of the deaths of other players (via our online systems), or scout audio logs left by other versions of Selene, which she does not remember recording. The projections show the deaths of other players in Returnal, after which you can decide whether to collect the remains and items of the fallen player or avenge his death, triggering events that are discovered as you play. The story content from the audio logs is handcrafted narration, while the projections are all created through the deaths of other players and found throughout Returnal's environments.
In a recent update on the title, Returnal's narrative director, Greg Louden, in fact confirmed that the next roguelike shooter will have asynchronous multiplayer gameplay and continued describing it briefly, revealing a mechanic that very closely resembles that of Dark Souls. Basically, gamers will often come across "Projections" left by other players, who will show how they died. After seeing a screening, we will be able to decide what to do next: from collecting their remains to finding their equipment, to the possibility of avenge their death. The projections will be different from any audio log you will find within the game, with these latter "narrative pieces" made by the developers, in contrast to the dynamic nature of the projections, which will arise directly from the actions of the players.
