Housemarque's Returnal is a third-person sci-fi shooter with roguelike elements, and it was officially released on April 30, as a PlayStation-exclusive title. The game has been enjoying an overwhelming and increasing amount of positive reviews up to now, but unfortunately, there is a trend of it receiving multiple negative reviews in a row that are lowering its overall score. Some of these reviews do include a few fair points, but even when arguably legitimate things are said they largely do not warrant scores of 1 or even 0 out of 10.
Review bombing is a phenomenon that saw a significant increase in frequency because of how accessible reviewing games or movies has become. This happens especially when there is little to no oversight on the content of these reviews, just like what Returnal witnessed a few days after release. Most of the time, this results in indie titles not garnering the players they would if the highlighted reviews were more honest. On the other hand, review bombing can also have the opposite effect and attract more customers. However, Returnal's review bombing stems from criticism of the game's design decisions
PS5's Returnal Reviews, Housemarque's Response, And Review Bombing
It is not uncommon for games that are generating a lot of discussions to witness an increase in sales precisely because of the publicity the negative reviews can foster. Whether or not this is going to be the case for Returnal, the very act of review bombing it is pointless at its core. Regardless of how much negative feedback a game can receive, justified or not, there will always be people who love the game for what it brings to the table: For its originality, for its story, for its exciting and intense gameplay, or other reasons.
Returnal feels good to play, especially so with the DualSense technology from PS5's controllers. Considering how some games can end up releasing unfinished or with numerous technical issues, Housemarque did a great job with its creative endeavor not to fall within this category.
Returnal, like any other game really, is one that's going to please many people and upset others. Some players are lowering Returnal's review ratio on release for reasons such as the price tag, the difficulty, or the fact that players lose most of the things they acquired during a run upon death. These are reasonable motives for disliking the game, but they don't justify comparably miserable scores. One of the most hated features (or, in this case, lack thereof) in Returnal seems to be how players cannot save their progress while playing and stopping the run.
Even then, Housemarque has acknowledged the community's feedback and will do something about the save feature in the future. There is still nothing official in terms of what this will entail, but the developers of Returnal have indeed shown a profound passion towards their work and the care poured into the game really shows. Furthermore, negative reviews can and should entice players enjoying Returnal into sharing more positive feedback about what the game does right, which is far more than it does wrong.
Review bombing does not always have the desired effect, and sometimes games that become popular at a later date, or are already at the time of this phenomenon, are not impacted by it at all. Games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Nier: Automata, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Borderlands 3 (in the form of Borderlands 2 on Steam) have all been review bombed at some point, for different reasons. Still, this fact didn't prevent these games from becoming the great titles they are today, and it didn't hurt player retention. Here's to hoping that Returnal follows in their footsteps, especially considering the immediate and genuinely concerned response from developer Housemarque.
Returnal is available now on PS5.