Atmospheric sci-fi mood, visuals and sound
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“Atropos feels hostile and mysterious, with excellent sound design and haunting environments that make exploration unsettling.”
Steam review · 57.9 h played ↗
Returnal™
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Mostly Positive · 80%Mostly Positive · 80%Housemarque, Climax Studios2023Bullet Hell · Roguelike · Action
$59.99
Open on Steam ↗US Steam price, checked 4 h ago
The verdict
A brutal, polished 3D bullet-hell roguelike with superb gunplay, atmosphere and a cryptic story, but the PC port has memory leaks, stutter and run-ending bugs. Skip it if you hate losing progress on death.
Great for
Fans of hard, fast third-person shooters and roguelikes who like moody, cryptic sci-fi stories
Main risk
Long runs reset on death, and the PC port has memory leaks, stutter and run-breaking bugs
What players love
Fast, satisfying bullet-hell combat
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“Dashing through waves of projectiles, switching between weapons, and staying on the move makes every fight intense and satisfying.”
Steam review · 57.9 h played ↗
Intriguing, mysterious story
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“Everytime I learned a new tidbit about Selene's emotional and tragic backstory and how she came to be on the planet Atropos, I wanted to fight through the next run to learn more.”
Steam review · 49.8 h played ↗
Challenging but rewarding and addictive
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“But with how unforgiving it is, it is also so incredibly rewarding.”
Steam review · 66.2 h played ↗
Varied weapons, bosses and level design
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews
“From story to fluid gameplay to solid mechanics to great level design to magical soundtrack, it's end to end masterclass in simple but elegant design.”
Steam review · 33 h played ↗
Great PC visuals for fans
Mentioned in ~1 in 13 positive reviews
“there's just no comparison between the P.C version with every setting maxed at more than double the framerate and resolution and image quality tech the PS5 can handle”
Steam review · 59 h played ↗
What players complain about
Crashes, stutter and fps drops
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“Game will randomly run at 140 fps max settings, and drop to 20-30 fps when turning your camera.”
Steam review · 1 h played ↗
Memory leak and unpatched PC port
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews
“it's been abandoned by the publisher with a huge PC memory leak so if you want to play for over an hour, you have to quit and restart”
Steam review · 101.6 h played ↗
Repetitive runs with little build variety
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews
“Between the short list of weapons in the arsenal, the short list of artifacts, and the prevalence of simple stat boosts as upgrades, the runs do start to feel same-y very quickly.”
Steam review · 10.3 h played ↗
Dying resets you; minimal meta-progression
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“such a tough roguelike that lets you keep hardly any upgrade or shortcut after death is just sadistic”
Steam review · 4.3 h played ↗
Run-breaking bugs and lost saves
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“the boss didn't respawn after I was revived, meaning I lose an hour of progress for nothing”
Steam review · 1.1 h played ↗
Broken, limited co-op
Mentioned in ~1 in 11 negative reviews
“the joining player is not getting any loot for the next runs, so after few runs, the joining player will always be useless compared to the host”
Steam review · 1.2 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: PlayableController support60 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz)
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB)
Storage60 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
ProcessorIntel i7-8700 (6 core 3.7 GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core 3.7 GHz)
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2070 Super (8 GB) AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB)
Storage60 GB available space
OSWindows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz)
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB)
Storage60 GB available space
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