![]() Selene is haunted by the sense that she’s lost her place in a perpetual loop. And yet, Housemarque’s masterpiece - without question the best and most promising game of the brand-new console generation for the time being - takes things a step further by weaponizing that eerie sense of recognition against the player and protagonist alike. In a genre where déjà vu is more of a feature than a bug, it makes sense that “Returnal” doesn’t feel any pressure to disguise its genealogy. When you die - which will happen so many times that death soon becomes as natural as stepping through a door - Selene is returned to the crash site and the procedurally generated planet around her rearranges its parts in a way that will seem perfectly natural to veterans of “Hades,” “Dead Cells” and other loop-based roguelikes. The slow wave of killer pearls it fires at you triggers sense memories of the bullet-hell shooters that dominated arcades in the days before developers like Housemarque (“Resogun”) brought them into the homes of hardcore gamers who prioritize sadistic design over bleeding edge graphics. ![]() ![]() Then you encounter the first of the two zillion enemies you’ll slaughter during some of the most vividly imaginative video game fights since “Horizon Zero Dawn” a wildebeest-like quadruped whose tentacled body glows turquoise against the dim landscape and anticipates the deep-sea vibe of much of Antropian life. Where to Watch This Week’s New Movies, from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
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