If you’ve been playing Returnal and have reached Act 2, you’ll find yourself in an unusual situation — you have a new starting point. As part of our Returnal guide, we’re going to explain what’s going on once you clear Act 1, and whether you can get back to the game’s older stages.

A final underwater shot of the water’s surface is interrupted as a thick foggy mass appears to block out the screen, cutting the shot to black before Returnal’s title card appears on screen and the credits roll. Returnal’s true ending is hidden behind an entire third act .

Yes, you can get back to the earlier levels. Don’t worry if you get to Echoing Ruins and are wondering how to go back. Just keep playing, and the game will open up even more. In order to return to the first three biomes in Returnal, you first need to beat Act 2 and roll the credits.

If you want to unlock Returnal ’s secret (and possible “true”) ending, you’ll need to complete the following steps: Beat Act 2 once and access the base ending. Find the six Sunface Fragments spread across each Biome in the game.

Does Returnal have a horror?

But no, Returnal’s horror lies in its simple and effective denouement. Selene’s psyche has created a world for her to live in for the last moments of her life. She has seemingly killed her child, managed to escape the water she crashed in, and now stares at the stars, her life seemingly flashing before her eyes.

But no, Returnal’s horror lies in its simple and effective denouement. Selene’s psyche has created a world for her to live in for the last moments of her life. She has seemingly killed her child, managed to escape the water she crashed in, and now stares at the stars, her life seemingly flashing before her eyes. Games, especially blockbusters like this, don’t usually end on such a fatalistic note. The subversion comes from what the game assumes people will want from it; that the cycle can be broken and the world will have a deeper meaning.

Returnal’s ending isn’t easy to find. Once you hit the credits of the game for the first time, you might think that you’ve got to the end of the game’s story, but there’s plenty more to discover. After all, Returnal is a roguelike, and you explore the game by dying and seeing what it’ll spawn in next time.

After all, Returnal is a roguelike, and you explore the game by dying and seeing what it’ll spawn in next time. It makes sense that it’s deepest secrets take more than one successful run to uncover. That does mean finding its true end can be complicated, especially if you don’t know what to look for.

Where is the car key in Returnal?

Complete Returnal ’s second Act again, defeat Ophion, and use the Car Key on the sedan you find at the bottom of the crater. This will trigger the secret ending.

After you beat Ophion in Act 2, you’ll enter a crater and dive to the bottom of a large body of water. There, you’ll strangely encounter a car that looks like it’s been underwater for quite some time as well as what appears to be a globe that soon morphs into a kind of sea creature.

Returnal is also the source of one of the most compelling and confusing video game stories in recent memory. Much like Hades, Returnal uses its roguelike gameplay as the basis for a complicated time loop narrative that leads to multiple endings that have so far left many scratching their heads.

In case you haven’t heard, Returnal is one of the best games of 2021, one of the PlayStation team’s most original supported projects in years, and one of the best reasons to be angry that you still can’t find a PlayStation 5. Returnal is also the source of one of the most compelling and confusing video game stories in recent memory.

One of the more popular early interpretations of this ending suggests that the events of Returnal are all a dream. The idea behind that explanation is that Selene was obsessed with her work, was in a terrible car accident partially caused by fatigue, and has essentially imagined her journey through Returnal as either a dream formed in her dying moments or some way to cope with what really happened by replacing the events of this accident in her mind with a grand adventure.

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