Returnal transforms roguelike gameplay into a third-person shooter where players fight to survive a hostile planet that changes with every death. Doors, Passages, and Secrets! Which Items in Returnal Are Permanent? Which Items in Returnal Are Not Permanent?

Returnal is mysterious, often obscuring things from its players. Returnal ’s secretive nature also applies to its ending. In this Returnal guide, we’ll show you how to unlock Returnal ’s secret ending to finish off Act 3. [ Warning: This guide won’t go into the story spoilers themselves, but this ending is intentionally hidden from players.

When you wake back up on the surface, you’ll be in Act 3. Nothing changes in Act 3 of Returnal, but you’ll be able to find six new objects that lead to the game’s secret ending: the Sunface Fragments. Returnal has six biomes — three in Act 1, and three in Act 2 — and six Sunface Fragments to find.

The good news is that the trick works whether you’re in the first, second or third acts, since each will return you to the crashed Helios at one point. Being able to repeatedly re-heal for free and without compromising your run isn’t just a huge advantage — it can fundamentally rewrite the entire script on Returnal ‘s difficulty.

How many haunted houses are there in Returnal?

There are six distinct haunted house encounters in Returnal. The first one is unlocked whenever you find the House Key, and you can see it without ever leaving the Overgrown Ruins. The other five encounters are unlocked after beating each boss.

You can find the House Key by diving into random Side Paths in the Overgrown Ruins until it spawns. This is totally random, so you might need to go searching for some time.

First, move to the end of the hallway and interact with the journal next to the lamp. Then return to the door and go into the side room. Play the piano. Then interact with the TV.

What does Returnal not tell you?

Returnal is a rogue-lite-like game set on the mysterious and always-changing planet of Atropos. It’s a difficult game and will often leave you scratching your head trying to figure out how this thing works or how that thing works.

Dying is important — it’s how much of the game’s story is told and revealed in Returnal. Most items are not permanent — if something’s description sounds non-permanent (increases integrity by X percent) or if its item type sounds non-permanent (think “Consumables”), there’s a good chance it’s not permanent.

Ether is a collectable resource in Returnal and you can carry a maximum of 30 Ether. You might consider hoarding this resource, and that’s totally ok to do, but don’t hoard too much of them because after 30, you’ll still be able to pick Ether up but you won’t increase your total Ether collected.

This is extremely helpful, but it can only be used once so use it wisely. To use it again, you’ll need to reactivate it with six Ether.

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You cannot challenge the first boss of Returnal (or enter its room) until you’ve found the Anathema Key. Head to IGN’s How to Find the Anathema Key guide for more information about that. You cannot open the houses in Returnal without first finding the House Key.

Datacubes will be useless until you defeat the first boss in Returnal. You can still pick them up if you’d like, but don’t expect to use them until after defeating the boss in the Overgrown Ruins. Translocators are the game’s version of Fast Traveling.

How many biomes are there in Returnal?

Returnal has six biomes — three in Act 1, and three in Act 2 — and six Sunface Fragments to find. Finding all six of the Sunface Fragments will give you a key, which you’ll need to unlock the secret ending. Each biome has its own Sunface Fragment. These items are often deep into a biome, so you’ll need to explore every area.

Image: Housemarque/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon. Once you have the Car Key, it’s time for another trek to Ophion. Yes, this means you need to re- beat Returnal ’s second act and defeat its final boss.

What happened to Theia in House?

In a House sequence, it’s pretty clearly spelled out that Theia suffered major spinal injuries from the crash, leaving her wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life, and thus unable to fulfil her dreams of becoming an astronaut.

Returnal’s narrative doesn’t spell everything out to the player, instead leaving things open to interpretation, which makes it ripe for discussion. In case it isn’t clear, we’re going to talk about the story in detail as well as show images from late in the game, so here’s your spoiler warning.

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