Returnal 2.0 Update Finally Lets Players Save During a Run

Returnal was one of the first PlayStation 5 exclusives, and it totally rocked. What didn’t rock was the fact that you couldn’t save during a run. And in a game where runs can take well over a couple of hours, this sucked. But, finally, with the Returnal 2.0 update, players can now suspend their run!

Developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Returnal is a third-person shooter roguelike that places players in the shoes of Selene who, similar to numerous popular games this year, lives and dies and lives again, over and over in a loop. As one of the first true PlayStation 5 experiences, with adaptive triggers and haptic feedback on center stage, Returnal shined as a gorgeous, neon alien world that was terribly fun (and hard) to play. But you couldn’t save.

In what feels somewhat too little too late, with the game being six months old now, Housemarque has finally made it so that Returnal can be saved, literally. The way this works is players can now pause their run wherever they are and click a “Suspend Cycle” button at the bottom of the menu. Once pressed, the game will give you the message, “Your current cycle has been saved and is now suspended. Returnal can now safely be closed from this screen.” It also prompts players to hold the PlayStation button to safely exit the game.

Playing Returnal without a save option was simultaneously inaccessible and unforgiving. It made playing feel less about being excessively hard (which it still is) and more about the game not valuing the player’s time. Now, if you’re feeling too stressed and need a break, if something comes up that you need to attend to, or if you need to go to bed and didn’t think you’d survive as long as you did, you can thankfully save and suspend your game with the Returnal 2.0 update.

In other news, also coming with the 2.0 update is a full-blown photo mode. Every game that comes out, especially on next-gen hardware like the PlayStation 5, needs a photo mode. The pictures fans will be able to take while playing this breathtaking game will be incredible.

With the photo mode and the ability to save a run, Returnal is put back on the map and is even more tantalizing than ever, especially to gamers who haven’t picked it up yet. Do yourself a favor and play this beautiful game, especially now that a run is doable in more ways than just one sitting.

Returnal is available on PlayStation 5.