After many months and some doubts, Housemarque has finally added the ability to suspend one’s run (or Cycle) in Returnal. This means you can now pause the Cycle, exit the game and turn off the PS5 while still retaining progress. On the PlayStation Blog, the developer clarifies that this is simply a single suspend point which will be deleted on resuming the game and not a “Save Game” option.
So if you die shortly after resuming the game and try to go back to the previous suspend point, then tough luck. You also can’t just suspend a Cycle during cinematics, first person sequences, “intense” combat situations, or boss battles. Why? As Game director Harry Krueger says, “We felt there are certain moments in Returnal that are best experienced unfragmented to preserve the intended challenge and flow.”
Along with Suspend Cycle, update 2.0 also adds what’s become a staple for many titles – Photo Mode. At nearly any point, one can pause the game and enable Photo Mode to take pictures (first person sequences are some of the few exceptions). Additional settings include aperture, saturation, focal distance, multiple light sources, filters, frames and more. You can then hit Create and the photo is created, ready to be shared.
Returnal is currently available for PS5. Check out our review for it here.