Last week, Housemarque’s excellent PS5 exclusive Returnal got a huge new update that introduced, among other things, the ability for players to suspend their game so that they can safely close it and return later on.
Unlike a dedicated save function, the suspend feature retains the game’s roguelike mechanic by deleting the suspend point as soon as the game resumes – meaning players can’t use it as a fallback should they die later down the track.
Or so we thought…
Joseph Yaden, of media brand Inverse, discovered the ability to “save scum” by exploiting the suspend in conjunction with the PS5’s cloud save feature, posting the results to Twitter so that other users might benefit:
I’ve gotta say — this method is singlehandedly getting me through Returnal. I know people are mad that I’m not playing it “the right” way, but I don’t have time to continuously die and restart over and over. I’m now enjoying it because of this and I think that’s a positive thing. https://t.co/VnKumA7dIh
— Joseph Yaden (@JosephYaden) October 31, 2021
There are definitely going to be those that decry this method as a form of cheating, but for others it might be the only way to make the game accessible enough to complete.
It’ll be interesting to see if developer Housemarque or PlayStation have anything to say about the exploit in the near future, or if this’ll be left alone as a handy (if cumbersome) bit of extra help.
