Returnal is here and Housemarque is certainly seeing a lot of success with its first endeavor into the AAA game space. Returnal led physical games sales in the UK last week, following closely behind New Pokemon Snap on the Nintendo Switch.
However, Returnal stays true to Housemarque's roots as the game is incredibly challenging for even the most hardcore players. As such, players may not want to update Returnal to version 1.3.3, as it removes a helpful exploit that many have been using to lengthen their runs.
Specifically, this most recent 1.3.3 patch "fixed incorrect healing behavior when resting in Helios." For those who may not have known, players were able to heal in the crashed Helios ship repeatedly as long as they were still in Biome 1. While this was only possible in Returnal's first Biome as the Helios is only accessible from there, it was an extremely helpful element that let players get out of the first area with a large amount of health to fall back on. Unfortunately, it seems that Housemarque did not intend on this to be a feature of the game and will correct the mistake in this next update.
For players who want to use this exploit to help with their runs, they may not want to update the game despite the patch coming with other helpful fixes. In fact, Housemarque even warned players to turn off auto-updates through a post on its official Twitter account. The team warned players about this because the patch would reset any current run. Naturally, losing progress because of an unexpected patch would be quite frustrating, so players should take the extra precaution on disable auto-updates for the game.
As mentioned above, the 1.3.3 patch fixes some general issues that should make the overall experience of Returnal run much smoother. The patch fixes issues with Trophies not popping, fixes stability issues, and fixes certain controller mapping issues. While this update is undoubtedly helpful, none of these issues are game-breaking, so players who want to delay the update shouldn't worry too much. Especially if players are far into a run without the ability to reliably save their progress.
In fact, this has been a somewhat controversial aspect of Returnal following the game's launch. Many players appreciate the game's difficulty, but don't like how difficult it is to save their progress during a run. Thankfully, Housemarque has hinted that save changes are coming eventually, which should alleviate some of player's issues with the game. For now though, players won't be getting that new feature in the 1.3.3 patch, so those wanting to get out of Biome 1 with a lot of health may want to steer clear of this update for the time being.
Returnal is available now exclusively on PS5.
Source: Housemarque