In order to fully explore every area in Returnal, players will need to collect certain permanent upgrades called Xenotech Devices. One of the earliest examples of this in the game is the Atropian Blade, which not only gives Selene a melee option but also enables her to break through red Xenotech Barriers. Players will use this feature constantly throughout the game, but eventually they may hit a wall, both physically and metaphorically. Occasionally, Xenotech Barriers are yellow instead of red, and these can't be broken by the Atropian Blade.
Given the difficult nature of Returnal, it can be very disheartening to see healing items or a chest stuck behind a yellow barrier, so naturally players will want to know how to break it. Thankfully, this time it doesn't require the player to get any new permanent device or beat a specific boss, but instead the player will have to get a specific artifact.
Yellow Xenotech Barriers in Returnal require the Blade Balancer artifact to break. This is something of an odd design choice since, due to the procedurally generated nature of the game, a Blade Balancer isn't always guaranteed to spawn. That said, there's usually a pretty good chance that one of these artifacts will appear in the main Fabricator shop in the first biome. Alternatively, players can get them from Reclaimers, chests, or anything else that has a chance to spawn an artifact.
The description of the Blade Balancer simply states that it enables a more powerful melee attack, and this is true in two regards. For starters, the Atropian Blade will now be able to break through yellow barriers in the same way it broke through the red ones, but the damage dealt by Selene's melee attack will also increase quite a bit. Unfortunately, since this is an artifact, it will disappear if the player dies, meaning future yellow Xenotech Barriers will not be breakable until the player reacquires this artifact.
As far as anyone can tell, the Blade Balancer seems to be the only artifact in the game that opens up new options for exploration. Most of them simply enhance Selene's combat prowess or mobility in some way, but this one actually gives access to new areas. For this reason, it's a good idea to purchase the Blade Balancer even if the player tends to avoid melee confrontations. On the other hand, it can be skipped entirely if the player hasn't run into any yellow barriers just yet.
Returnal is available now on PS5.