When we talked about adding online co-op to Returnal at Housemarque, the biggest question we had was: how can we support co-op play in an intentionally surreal, isolating and finely balanced experience to challenge the ability of a only player to survive?
The Chronosis
It just starts with setting the mood: how do you get another player into Returnal? Well, through Chronosis of cours.
Players with a PlayStation Plus subscription interact with a Chronosis, and suddenly another ASTRA Scout enters their cycle, looking down and analyzing Selene as she emerges. It’s very surreal and uncomfortable – which makes it absolutely perfect for Returnal.
Beyond that, we’ve really built the multiplayer experience around the idea that players can get help to progress through the game. A host player invites another player to join their session to help them overcome his current challenge. The host retains this progression, while the joining player increases their scout rank, weapon traits, and data bank. At first, we had Chronosis in multiple locations in each of our biomes, but eventually realized this was unintentionally causing players to engage in co-op before major boss fights. Now, Chronosis is at the start of each biome, so players are encouraged to explore and see how the game plays and evolves with a partner and how the distribution of resource scarcity is immediately a new dynamic.
keep the edge
Of course, we wanted to preserve the challenge, drama, and intensity that Returnal is known for, so some of our new co-op mechanics have gone through many iterations to ensure these crucial game elements are maintained.
Our most blunt example was our initial approach to dealing with a “downed” player; while a player is standing, a downed player can be revived and brought back into the fray. To revive a downed player, the living player initially had to sacrifice some of their health to revive their teammate.
Turns out it was mean. Five minutes into a new round, both players would be bare minimum and stuck in a vicious circle of one-hit kills.
While testing one day, we realized that, really, reviving a downed player had already taken up a very precious resource: time. Reviving your teammate in the middle of a fight, especially against an elite or boss where every millisecond counts, is all it really takes to maintain difficulty while ensuring both players can stay active in the game. game at the same time.
Another element of the game that we’ve changed for the co-op experience are the House and Ship sections which are experienced from Selene’s first-person perspective. We ended up removing these sections when playing multiplayer so we could keep the speed and intensity of multiplayer sessions high throughout the experience.
Finally, Returnal has also been rebalanced specifically for co-op play so that Atropos remains the perilous planet brimming with deadly monsters we all know and love – right now with room for a friend.
The joys of networking
Integrating multiplayer logic into Returnal wasn’t the easiest effort and is, for the most part, a significant technical engineering challenge and as we prepared for the ship we certainly encountered more than a few “problems” along the way. Like a Titanops that has become quite attached to its prey and the occasional “other” scout that has gone through too many cycles.
Beyond the technical complications, we also discussed and worked through a host of design and UI/UX considerations to integrate another player into a host’s world as easily as possible. One of the first accessibility issues we ran into was just being able to see the other player in a scene full of fast-moving enemies and bullets everywhere. We didn’t want to go overboard with this solution, so we incorporated a subtle ASTRA-Green contour shader whenever your teammate moved beyond a certain distance. We’ve also created a stylish jumpsuit variant to complete the visual differentiation between Selene and the “Other” Scout.
We’ve also iterated on our main co-op HUD by providing additional information to track where your teammate is, how far away they are from you, and most importantly the “Scout Rank” mechanic to reward players who join other games to help fellow ASTRA Scouts. This rank is displayed prominently for both players in a session and provides additional Ether to the visiting player each time they rank up.
Conclusion
Thanks to everyone involved with Returnal: Ascension and a special thanks to our co-development studio Climax Studios. Now that Returnal supports co-op, we’re really excited to see players getting back into the game and bringing in additional support to overcome potential game pain points; being able to fight through some of Returnal’s boss sequences with a partner was already exhilarating in our internal playtests.
That is, “Bring it on, Nemesis.” We will pick you up now.
Comeback Soundtrack Vinyl
We’re also thrilled to announce that Bobby Krlic’s acclaimed Returnal score will finally be released on vinyl with custom artwork, available to pre-order now at here.
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