Returnal hides its secrets in plain sight, and yet years of blockbuster storytelling in games mean we expect something grander to materialize, with threads left dangling for a sequel. Instead, the gut-punch ending offers just enough to allow us to process the story without feeling short-changed. The subversion comes from what the game assumes people will want from it that the cycle can be broken and the world will have a deeper meaning. Games, especially blockbusters like this, don’t usually end on such a fatalistic note. She has seemingly killed her child, managed to escape the water she crashed in, and now stares at the stars, her life seemingly flashing before her eyes. Selene’s psyche has created a world for her to live in for the last moments of her life. The story might feel basic, as Selene tries to chase down the White Shadow signal that drew her to this planet, but the world-building feels suitably dense.īut no, Returnal’s horror lies in its simple and effective denouement. The world of Atropos is not only teaming with murderous creatures and alien environments, but lore-heavy backstory that can be found on Xenoglyphs and Scout Logs. Returnal, especially in its early stages, seems like it’s setting up for something similar.

We’re used to seeing new stories being written with an eye for the future, a franchise in the making, rather than a tale for the present. While this is a pretty familiar trope, one that Jacob’s Ladder fans might have seen coming, what makes Returnal’s ending work is the fact that it subverts modern gaming storytelling convention. The Xenoglyphs referring to a Creator/Destroyer throughout the game? Selene’s crash is implied to have killed her child, making her both. Her ship Helios being beyond repair? The guilt of her not being able to rescue her child from the depths of the river. The White Shadow signal she’s been chasing? That was simply the light above the water’s surface which her car crashed into. The simple explanation is that all of Returnal is taking place in Selene’s head. She will also now have a set of car keys, which have an astronaut keyring on them. When she wakes back up, she is sitting on a throne, next to two decomposing Severed aliens, while her house is gone. A short segment follows, which sees her finally able to access the basement, where she finds a wheelchair and sits down in it, aging rapidly.

Once you’ve collected all 6 Sun Face fragments, Selene will be able to enter her 20th century house one last time. You’ll now be able to return to the Act 1 world, as a mysterious machine is revealed in your ship, Helios, that lets you move between the two sets of biomes. Selene will now start talking about having to put the Sun back together, and this means collecting a fragment of the Sun Face from Selene’s house across all 6 biomes in the game. Once you’ve completed Act 2, and you watch a cutscene (opens in new tab) where Selene crashes a car with her child in it into a river, you’ll reawaken in the Overgrowth Ruins, the game’s fourth world.

Returnal sunface fragments