YMMV / Returnal

• Award Snub: The game not being nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2021 raised a few eyebrows due to Returnal being one of the better-received games of the year. It being passed over by the likes of Deathloop and Resident Evil Village and even fellow PS5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart didn't help either.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Selene is voiced by Jane Perry, who is better known by many for playing Hitman's resident Deadpan Snarker and handler to Agent 47; Diana Burnwood, from Hitman (2016) onward. The accent is Perry's own Canadian accent instead of the upper-class English she uses in the latter games, however. Good luck getting that out of your head!
• Demonic Spiders: The flying rocket drones in the Derelict Citadel. On their own, the drones aren't that bad, since their salvo of rockets, while highly damaging and homing, isn't too hard to avoid. The problem is that the drones are never on their own, they tend to spawn in large groups and alongside other enemies, which tends to make things very hard very quickly.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • In the lead-up to and after release, it quickly formed one with Hades, another high-profile Roguelike game released a year earlier. It also formed one with fans of Doom for its sci-fi aesthetics and similar fast-paced gameplay.
  • After its release, with Bloodborne, due to both titles being PlayStation-exclusive Nintendo Hard games released early into their respective console generations and gained notable critical acclaim, launching after fellow exclusives that proved to be flops (The Order: 1886 to Bloodborne, Destruction AllStars to Returnal). This also extends to fans of FromSoftware and Souls-like RPG in general.
  • Formed a bit of an overlap with Metroid Dread due to both featuring sci-fi settings centered around hardened and capable Action Girls surrounded by horror elements. Returnal in general is seen rather favorably by the Metroid fandom as a whole for its slight similarities with the franchise.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The "HELIOS Abandoned" message that begins every run of the game becomes much darker once you realize that the central guilt of Selene's life is leaving her son, Helios, to die in the car crash depicted in the game's endings.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: One criticism directed at Returnal is its difficulty and lack of saving during a run.
• Memetic Mutation: Selene sometimes being compared to a Karen due to her middle-aged appearance and short haircut.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The game launched with no save function, much to the consternation of many players. While you could pause your run in a pinch by putting the PS5 into rest mode, an active run would get deleted if the console uses its auto-update functionality. This was finally addressed in the 2.0 update, which gave the player the ability to suspend the game and save their run without issues.
• That One Boss: Phrike, the very first boss, is generally considered a Wake-Up Call Boss that marks a significant Difficulty Spike compared to enemies and obstacles that came earlier.

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