PlayStation Official Returnal Discussion

Beat it this afternoon and got the "true ending". It really didn't add much clarity to the first ending you get.

Have some thories on the ending and looking forward to discussing as others get the full ending.
 
I had two artifacts that give you back health just by shooting with 2/3 keys on Biome 5 and my game got an error and crashed.

I was really pissed, the chances of getting those two in one run has to be very rare.

Great game though, I finshed RE8 this week but I find myself thinking about this game more. Gameplay is really awesome.

I'd give RE8 and 8/10 and Returnal a 9/10
 
Wasn't planning on trying for the Plat, but the only trophies I have left are the biome surveys and not planning on jumping to a new game until Biomitant launches. Hopefully it's enough time since it's based on RNG for the right glyphs and audio logs to show up.
 
Wasn't planning on trying for the Plat, but the only trophies I have left are the biome surveys and not planning on jumping to a new game until Biomitant launches. Hopefully it's enough time since it's based on RNG for the right glyphs and audio logs to show up.
Dink, should one find himself so close to the throne, one takes the bloody crown! Sheet, brother. What's the completion rate right now for Plat?
 
Dink, should one find himself so close to the throne, one takes the bloody crown! Sheet, brother. What's the completion rate right now for Plat?

Currently 0.4% across all of PSN according to PSN profiles (5.93% of their tracked users have it)
 
Beat it this afternoon and got the "true ending". It really didn't add much clarity to the first ending you get.

Have some thories on the ending and looking forward to discussing as others get the full ending.

Also beat it and got the true ending.

The game got super easy honestly. Unlocking the weapon perks make some of them pretty friggin OP.

My first attempt in Act 2 for the true ending ended like yours almost. I found all the sunface fragments except for the last. Ran all over the map looking for this bitch and found nothing. Gave up, went down the well, forgot there was another area.. looked around there but also found nothing. Went ahead and beat the boss. Was pretty pissed about it. Ran it a 2nd time. Again ran all over the place and found nothing. This time after i went down the well I found an area where it was.. fuckin' A. Beat it. Then ran it again and got the true ending.

That ending is a bit meh... Thought about it for a good 15 mins or so and came up with a few theories... most of them were out there online. its so vague though. And it doesn't answer a bunch of other questions though.

Fun game. Addicting as fuck. I might actually try to unlock all the weapons. It's fun running around killing shit. I'll give this a 9/10. The ending was B+ - i wanted a bit more.
 
Also beat it and got the true ending.

The game got super easy honestly. Unlocking the weapon perks make some of them pretty friggin OP.

My first attempt in Act 2 for the true ending ended like yours almost. I found all the sunface fragments except for the last. Ran all over the map looking for this bitch and found nothing. Gave up, went down the well, forgot there was another area.. looked around there but also found nothing. Went ahead and beat the boss. Was pretty pissed about it. Ran it a 2nd time. Again ran all over the place and found nothing. This time after i went down the well I found an area where it was.. fuckin' A. Beat it. Then ran it again and got the true ending.

That ending is a bit meh... Thought about it for a good 15 mins or so and came up with a few theories... most of them were out there online. its so vague though. And it doesn't answer a bunch of other questions though.

Fun game. Addicting as fuck. I might actually try to unlock all the weapons. It's fun running around killing shit. I'll give this a 9/10. The ending was B+ - i wanted a bit more.

I've read a few of the theories and most were pretty in line with what I had put together. I think it was the IGN one that I read that seemed pretty far off to what I had put together and was scratching my head on how they got there since it contridicted some of the stuff that presented to you in the various logs.

My take was that the Selena was the little girl in the car and her mother Theia was driving, and one of the news reports in watching the TV in a house sequence states that the mom was paralyzed while Selena walked away with no real damage.

Selene abandoned her mom to take part in the Scout program, which I think she carries a lot of guilt. One of the audio logs was an interview and she mentioned that the Scout program meant you probably wouldn't be back, and she got a little defensive when she said she didn't have anyone to keep her home.

It mentioned that her mom worked a lot and Selene was left to fend for herself for much of her childhood. She seemed to have a deep attachment to her toy squid, which i think is why you are constantly seeing tentacles after each run as well as a vast majority of the enemies having squid like arms. Where my theroy breaks away from all that I've watched is where most think there is an alien force dragging Selene through this death loop, I am more leaning towards with all of the guilt Selene carries for her mom, that this death loop is her pergartory. She has survivors guilt for walking away from the accident and sees herself as the cause of the accident (her as the white shadow in front of the car) as well as shooting down her own ship on Atripos.

One thing I didn't see mentioned in any of the True Ending discussions is that state of the skeletal Theia in the wheel chair. She looked like an old skeletal corpse but she had a large stomach, which I thought that maybe she may have been pregnant, and not only was she paralyzed during the accident but also lost an unborn child, further adding to the guilt Selene carried.

Could be way off, but that's just my take!
 
After beating the game the hoarding looter in me wanted to get and level up all the weapon perks. After 2+ days of collecting I am thinking about giving up on this endeavor.

There's a glitch in the last biome (i think unless it's on purpose) where the yellow star room (3 rounds of tough monsters) will reset after you visit other areas of the map. So what I did was find a side room where i could open and trigger unending monsters to spawn (as long as you don't kill the originator) and fire from outside the room with different weapons i would receive from defeating the yellow star room. I would kill monsters, collect 3-4 weapons and move them out of the room and take each of them to the side room and level them up. There are SOOOO many perks.. After doing this for 2+ days i had 50+ weapons scattered throughout the map. Accidentally killed the originator in the side room so i gave up and finished the game again.

Thinking about doing it again but guuuh.. the grind is real. I still have weapons with level I perks. I recommend ensuring you have artifacts that help you regen health during fire fight. Some of those bosses can give you a malfunction upon hit so extra care is required. If you get hit with 1 after acquiring 2 malfunctions it can destroy one of your artifacts (and it actually destroyed one of my two healing regen artifact - fucking RNG assholes). Was still able to continue farming but it made the process longer. Anyway I might be burned out of this game (or getting very close to it).
 
Last edited:
I'm definitely done after this coming weekend. Beat it with the true ending just before last weekend, and spent my time over the weekend trying to finish up the Biome research for the plat. I made some progress and found some glyphs and an audio log. I'm done to 3 audio logs and how ever many glyphs are left. I don't think there is a way to track, but once you complete a biome and get the trophy you at least know you can move on. I've maxed all of the translations except for three. Two of them are pretty close sitting at like 85/90 and 72/80, but then glyph 19 isn't even logged in my data bank yet so no idea how much there is for that. A little frustrating with the RNG and have read some people have had to run biomes 20+ times to get the last of their glyphs. If I don't get lucky and get the plat, I think I'm ready to move on to Biomutant on the 25th.

I thought about maxing gun traits until I started unlocking tier III traits and saw it was like 1% a kill. That would take forever to get all of the different traits on all of the weapons. I'm somewhat interested in the weapon research since I believe there are two tiers. The first 100% unlocks more weapon information then second tier unlocks world lore completely unrelated to the weapon, at least that was my experience with the Pylon Driver, I'm close with the Carbine.
 
Picked this up after a break from RE8. Was struggling quite a bit then found some good upgrades and smoked the first two biomes. Exploring the third for the first time but had to call it for the night. Even with the struggles this game is still so addicting. Finally got the grapple upgrade so I’m looking forward to being able to explore even more. Such a fantastic game.
 
I was feeling a little deflated with the last few trophies for biome research, but had about an hour of free time that I loaded a run into. Was playing for just a few minutes in Biome 4 and unlocked the trophy and feeling pretty hopeful I can either get the rest this weekend or really close to it that I can play a couple sessions here and there and get the plat.

Also just playing around with some of the other guns that I wrote off early and kicking myself for not doing it sooner. Still love the Pylon Driver and Carbine, but have been using the Rot Globber and Hallow Seeker a little more and both are pretty great once you unlock some perks. My mistake was not caring for the primary fire and just dumping it. The HS is pretty weak with it's primary fire alone but hot damn do the traits really pump up the DPS. Think I might like it more than the Carbine now, but it's hard when the Leech Rounds are so helpful in building a large suit integrity.
 
Beat Act 2, have 2/6 sun fragments, still gonna try to platinum it, how does biome research work? Is it just finding audio logs?
 
Beat Act 2, have 2/6 sun fragments, still gonna try to platinum it, how does biome research work? Is it just finding audio logs?

There are audio logs, the red glyphs, and the big 3D xeno archives. The xeno archives are really easy to unlock because they are all in the same room and can't be fully unlocked until you get all of the suit enhancements. The way I understand it is the audio logs and glyphs are bound to a specific biome. So once the trophy for the biome unlocks, you don't have to spend any more time there as all of the potential audio logs and glyphs that could spawn there have been found. I'm not sure of a way to track how many glyphs are left though. I picked up one and the glyph said it was 11 of 15, but when I looked in my data log it said that translation was 72 of 80. When I got the plat for biome 4, the glyph I picked up was for glyph grouping 17, but when I looked in my data log, it's the one translation I don't even have unlocked..

Bottom line is to keep running the biomes until the trophy unlocks. Trying to decipher the what you need from the data log is just confusing.
 
Got a few hours in before I had to be on the clock while working at home today. Was able to finish the research in Biome 5 and snag the trophy, which is a huge relief because 5 is probably my least favorite biome. Also grabed quite a few glyphs and an audio log in biome 6.

Still not exactly sure how the glyph translations are tracked. In my data log it says I'm completly missing the translation for 17. Found a glyph for 17 which put me at 17 of 20, but it didn't unlock it and was scratching my head. Found another one pretty quickly and was paying attention to the identifier and the individual glyph as AS-AR-017 and the translation in my log is AS-AX-017. The last one I found this morning was 18 of 20 so hoping once I complete it, it will unlock the data log and hopefully unlock the trophy. Don't have any of the research done in Act I, but once I get done with Biome 6 I'll be done with Act II and can jump back. Act I is so much easier to rush through, so hoping that goes pretty quick. Pretty hopeful for the plat this weekend.
 
5/6 sunface fragments, only unlocked the survey trophy for the first biome. Game doesn't make it very clear on what you need for each biome.

Liking the new addition of the fallen players you can avenge or scavenge. Got caught off guard with an infected one and it nearly killed me.
 
5/6 sunface fragments, only unlocked the survey trophy for the first biome. Game doesn't make it very clear on what you need for each biome.

Liking the new addition of the fallen players you can avenge or scavenge. Got caught off guard with an infected one and it nearly killed me.

I imagine that you're probably missing the Sun Fragment in the 6th Biome, it's the only one that is easy to miss as it won't pop up on your map when you enter the room. From what I've read and experienced it's always placed prior to the big drop in the last biome. So if you're hunting and get to the drop off, you've gone to far. There is a large room with a chest that doesn't show up on your map until you get closer, as you get close to chest it looks like the edge of the room on your mini map, but there will be a blue orb to shoot off in the distance. Once you create the bridge, you'll get the last piece as well as a data cube and audio log.

To finish biome research you need to collect the audio logs, glyph cyphers, and xeno archives.

The xeno archives are the easiest since they always show up in every run, you just can't unlock all of the holograms until you have all of the suit upgrades. If you're in the second run you should be able to snag them all. The 6th biome can be tricky as it can be easy to miss. The Archive is at the bottom of a pit that if you don't jump down you won't see the room. The room has a long gap with a chest at the end, with 3 large blocks to jump across. Jump down in the pit and the Archive is at the bottom.

It took me a while, but I've finally figured out what cyphers are left. When you look at the translations, it doesn't really tell you much other than how many cyphers are needed to complete the translation, but not what biome they are in. If you look at your resources, AS-AR-017 shows your collected cyphers in each biome out of the total in the biome. Here you can quickly see how many are left in each biome which helps when farming. I think I'm still missing a small detial though, because my last translation is at 83 of 90, but when I sum up all of the remaining cyphers it shows I have 9 left, so it doesn't quite add up.
 
I imagine that you're probably missing the Sun Fragment in the 6th Biome, it's the only one that is easy to miss as it won't pop up on your map when you enter the room. From what I've read and experienced it's always placed prior to the big drop in the last biome. So if you're hunting and get to the drop off, you've gone to far. There is a large room with a chest that doesn't show up on your map until you get closer, as you get close to chest it looks like the edge of the room on your mini map, but there will be a blue orb to shoot off in the distance. Once you create the bridge, you'll get the last piece as well as a data cube and audio log.

To finish biome research you need to collect the audio logs, glyph cyphers, and xeno archives.

The xeno archives are the easiest since they always show up in every run, you just can't unlock all of the holograms until you have all of the suit upgrades. If you're in the second run you should be able to snag them all. The 6th biome can be tricky as it can be easy to miss. The Archive is at the bottom of a pit that if you don't jump down you won't see the room. The room has a long gap with a chest at the end, with 3 large blocks to jump across. Jump down in the pit and the Archive is at the bottom.

It took me a while, but I've finally figured out what cyphers are left. When you look at the translations, it doesn't really tell you much other than how many cyphers are needed to complete the translation, but not what biome they are in. If you look at your resources, AS-AR-017 shows your collected cyphers in each biome out of the total in the biome. Here you can quickly see how many are left in each biome which helps when farming. I think I'm still missing a small detial though, because my last translation is at 83 of 90, but when I sum up all of the remaining cyphers it shows I have 9 left, so it doesn't quite add up.

Yes it's the biome 6 fragment I need, that room you are talking about I actually died while jumping up the platforms and falling to my doom on low health lol.

Yeah I found the archive in biome 6, I think I have all the xeno-archives now, looked like it added up in the database anyway.
 
I was hoping to get the plat this weekend but I come up a little short and not sure if I have it in me to finish up, just a bit to grindy. I got the research trophies for all of the Act II biomes, but Act I is kicking my butt. I have all of the glyphs in Biome 1 but I can't get the last scout log. Must have ran the biome 30+ times and no luck.

I read biome 2 is the worst. Some people have said to run it 100+ times in order to get all of the glyphs. Just don't have time for that kind of a grind.
 
I was hoping to get the plat this weekend but I come up a little short and not sure if I have it in me to finish up, just a bit to grindy. I got the research trophies for all of the Act II biomes, but Act I is kicking my butt. I have all of the glyphs in Biome 1 but I can't get the last scout log. Must have ran the biome 30+ times and no luck.

I read biome 2 is the worst. Some people have said to run it 100+ times in order to get all of the glyphs. Just don't have time for that kind of a grind.

Man I haven't even ventured back into Act I in a while. Weapons being so low leveled annoyed me. But I am burned out from running those weapon leveling up runs. I am actually breaking the game when i am doing my runs. It stutters and freezes hard at in some of my runs. I guess have several dozens of weapons on the ground is fucking up with this game. Might be a glitch with the latest patch..

I do need to go back to biome 1 but i ran into some REALLY hard mid bosses with some shitty weapons and i couldn't kill them and fled back to Act 2. I do have to go back and finish up my trophies...
 
Back
Top