Returnal has arrived and the gaming world has received Housemarque's first foray into the AAA space with open arms, for the most part. Returnal is considered a masterpiece by many, even with some of its minor complaints in regards to bugs or design choices. One major and perhaps game-breaking bug has recently popped up, however, surrounding the newest update of Returnal.
Earlier today, fans were reporting issues with update 1.3.3 of Returnal. The patch was originally supposed to address stability issues, fix Trophy problems, pre-order suit issues, adjust certain custom controller mappings, address numerous bug fixes, and more. However, now developer Housemarque has pulled the update entirely and is telling anyone who has updated the game to uninstall Returnal entirely.
According to a barrage of tweets from Housemarque, Patch 1.3.3 of Returnal has been pulled and the game has been reverted back to 1.3.1 until the issues are resolved. According to Housemarque, players will get a CE-100028-1 error code based on the update when they attempt to boot the game up. To be safe, the developer is suggesting uninstalling the game altogether and reinstalling it back to the 1.3.1 reverted state.
As far as what will happen if someone attempts to play Returnal with the 1.3.3 update, Housemarque does not mention anything in the tweets, perhaps for now to avoid additional PR disasters. But according to comments below these tweets, players have reported completely corrupted saves and lost progress, meaning the update 1.3.3 has entirely broken the game.
Many players booted up update 1.3.3 of Returnal expecting a fix to Trophy problems in the game. There were individuals who were very close to completing the game and had to wait for the bugged Trophies to be fixed to "Platinum" the game. But instead of being able to finish Returnal, the update has completely reset the progress, according to players. This game-breaking update is obviously very infuriating for many.
Housemarque pulled the update, and the team will be working on a new update for all of the problems that were being addressed in update 1.3.3, but the damage is done. Many fans have been review bombing Returnal simply because they can not save progress in the middle of a multi-hour run. Although the game has exciting and intense gameplay with an intriguing narrative, the internet can come together to bomb a review based on a single complaint. But this 1.3.3 update could be much bigger. There are commenters already asking for refunds, for example, and individuals who once were enjoying the game are extremely frustrated and unhappy.
Returnal is available now on PS5.