One of the PS5’s most anticipated exclusives is getting pushed back to add a little bit of polish. Housemarque’s Returnal has been delayed to April 30th to allow the team a little bit of extra time on the game before it reaches players’ hands.
Update: Returnal has a new release date of April 30, 2021. SIE and Housemarque have made the decision to move the release date in order to give the team extra time to continue to polish the game to the level of quality players expect from Housemarque.
See you in April! pic.twitter.com/xb6IBWJ5TQ
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) January 28, 2021
Originally set for a March 19th release, Returnal was pushed back by six weeks to allow Housemarque to give it the “level of quality players expect” from the studio.
Returnal is a departure from Housemarque’s previous twin-stick shooter, bullet-hell fare, while still embracing the roots that the developer came from. It will use the PS5’s SSD to allow for near instant respawns, as part of the effort to offer players infinite replay value. The roguelike’s story focuses on a “cycle of chaos,” caught in a time loop of dying and retrying. The world will change and evolve with every rebirth and loop, creating compelling new ways to face the challenges ahead of you.
Housemarque announced their intention to step away from twin-stick arcade shooters back in 2017. Since then, fans of the studio have waited with bated breath to see how the beloved developer would reinvent themselves. They returned in 2018 teasing a new game called Stormdivers and another massive AAA project that ended up being PS5-exclusive Returnal.
Returnal was one of the games first showcased in the PS5 reveal event the uncovered upcoming games for the new console back in the summer of 2020. Housemarque says it will make unique use of PS5-specific features like Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers on the DualSense controllers.
Returnal releases on April 30th, 2021, exclusively on PS5.
