

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the responsiveness of a mouse and keyboard feels transformative to Returnal, allowing me to zip around rooms and pull off deadly accurate shots with ease. It's just fine on any other controller, too, with appropriate button mapping making the gameplay feel just as natural. If you use one with your PC setup, and you use it wired, you'll have full access to the same control scheme that was present on the PS5, including its marvelous use of the adaptive triggers to augment primary and secondary fire. On PC, it's action that's still best enjoyed with the controller it was ultimately designed for, the DualSense. Its bright, neon particles and large, deadly projectiles flood environments and bathe them in a variety of colors, accentuating the exhilarating, fast-paced gunplay.

Returnal is a technical showpiece on the PS5, with remarkably rich art direction making each of the six distinct biomes a pleasure to explore. Aside from unlocking new levels of performance not possible on the PlayStation 5, Returnal arrives with some welcome new visual settings, an array of settings for display and upscaling options, and a bar-setting benchmark tool that helps you fine-tune performance far better than any other I've ever used. PC version update: Returnal might have taken slightly longer than other PlayStation-exclusive titles to finally reach PC, but this engaging blend of fast-paced third-person action and roguelite progression could not feel more at home on its new platform.
