I got the second tier of playstation plus for Christmas. Been slowly working my through games on there I wanted to try. Finally got around to returnal.

It looks stunning, gun play is tight, concept seems interesting but after three days of playing and over a dozen deaths I haven't passed the first biome. I haven't even found the first boss.

I think this is just not a game for me. I'm not the world's biggest fan of souls like games although I did beat fallen order and control (if that counts. Loved it btw) but clearly I'm sucking at this game. Generally I'm not afraid of a higher difficulty level in a game, I usually play most games on hard or very hard if they have a difficulty setting.

I'm also not opposed to roguelikes I really liked death loop and I liked the moon crash dlc for Prey.

I think the issue is, on a good run I may stay alive for over an hour. Haven't come across the biome boss. On a bad run I may die somewhat quickly. Regardless I've had almost no permanent progression. I'm not a fan of the randomized weapon perk at start, and at least for me, in the first biome the artifacts you get with your ether are the start of a new run don't seem to be very helpful.

I think the randomness of new guns found is very poorly realized as very often I'm finding drops of the same gun with a worse mod, or a gun I'm not a fan of. (whatever the shot gun is called, not for me. )

The malfunctions also seem to be very very punishing to the point that after the first two or three I just don't feel that using a malignant item is worth it ever.

Finally if, like me, you suck and die a lot you very quickly have exhausted whatever story/lore there is in the first biome before moving on. Generally in a very hard game that I'm dying a lot, the progression of the story and finding out what's going on is what keeps me going. I haven't found anything new in any of the four runs I've done today.

All that to say, I'm disappointed that it just doesn't seem to be a game for me. I'm glad I tried it, and had it not been in the ps game catalogue I'd probably have been upset at myself for buying it. As it stands, it looks really cool and I'll probably watch a stream to see what happens but I think I'm done.