More evidence of a PC port for Returnal discovered

Returnal is a highly unique, fun and impressive 3rd-person roguelite bullet-hell shooter which was released exclusively for the PlayStation 5 back in 2021.  Following its launch, rumours popped up suggesting that the title would be making its way to PC platforms at some point in the future. While we have yet to see any official confirmation of such a port, a newly-published GDC talk has added fuel to the fire.

Returnal developer Housemarque hosted a talk at the 2022 Game Developers Conference, where they discussed “how Housemarque used their programmable particle system to create key vfx features in Returnal. Covering aspects such as volumetric fog driven by real-time fluid simulations and usage of particle hierarchies for character effects such as tentacles.”

While an interesting video in its own right, Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia made an astute observation about the presentation, taking to Twitter to say “Returnal's presentation from GDC on its VFX and particle work is really cool – but I enjoy the bonus it has of once again confirming the PC version. Debug, readout!”

What Battaglia is referring to here is the debug menu shown off during the presentation, which shows the game running in SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) mode on a PC. While not necessarily the most damning of evidence for a PC port in its own right, this latest discovery comes in the wake of previous leaks and rumours which claimed a PC port is on its way (most infamously as part of the huge Nvidia leak which occurred back in 2021).

Additionally, PlayStation has slowly but surely been bringing its exclusives to PC, and so it seems only a matter of time before we get official confirmation of a PC port for Returnal. As good as the game felt playing it on PS5, the gameplay would lend itself nicely to keyboard and mouse controls, and so hopefully it does indeed come to PC soon.

KitGuru says: Would you like to see Returnal come to PC? Have you played it on PS5? When do you think the port will be officially announced? Let us know down below.

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