A voluminous preview material appeared on the site of the official PlayStation blog, in which a specialist from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) told what to expect from the first hours in the roguelike shooter Returnal from the Housemarque studio.

Recall that Returnal will talk about the woman astronaut Selene, who, as a result of the crash of her spaceship, falls into a time loop on the planet Atropos. In order not to go crazy, the heroine will have to break the cycle.

Returnal’s world is divided into several biomes, each of which “Is a maze of interconnected areas” with unique challenges, enemies and a boss. The latter must be defeated only once (the first).

The developers assure that the diversity of alien fauna “boggles the imagination”

In battles, as she deals damage to enemies and dodges oncoming attacks, Selena will accumulate adrenaline, which gives bonuses (five levels in total): from increasing the power of attacks to improving vision.

Reloading weapons in Returnal is called overloading: if you press the appropriate button during it, the “barrel” will receive a temporary increase in lethal force, and otherwise it will be out of order.

The level of the picked up weapon depends on the heroine’s skill parameter, which increases as the game progresses and due to certain items

Artifacts found in the world of Returnal give bonuses (for example, slowing down time in alternative fire mode) until the end of the current cycle, and consumables (shields, healing injections) imply a single use.

Selena can also pick up parasites, which give bonuses and penalties to characteristics. You can get rid of the effect with the help of local “currency” (obolits) – it drops out of enemies and is mined from special stones.

The mini-map, docked in the lower right corner of the screen, displays different paths (complete walkthrough, side zones, challenges with mini-bosses), as well as collectibles.

The developers promise that most of the interface elements can be hidden if desired, and the settings include color blindness options that will allow you to change the highlight color of the drop-down loot.

In addition, the SIE specialist mentioned that Returnal will have daily challenges (available in Selena’s shipwreck) with an online leaderboard. You do not need a PlayStation Plus subscription to participate.

Returnal is expected to premiere on April 30 this year exclusively on PlayStation 5. At the end of March, the game went gold, which means nothing should interfere with the timely release.