Returnal Developers React to 46 Minute Speedrun (4K 60fps)

[Music] well often ask ourselves like how fun will this be to play a hundred times later yes not only the first time and generally the rule was that anything that's only fun once should only be experienced once yes and I guess now with the extra permanent being helper it should drastically increase the damage per second output oh yeah oh man I think ixion's gonna have a bad time yeah yes we're gonna have a bad day yeah for sure [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] thanks for joining us today so I'd like to introduce myself so my name is Harry Kruger and I'm the game director of Eternal and with me today we have hey everyone I'm Greg Louden I'm the narrative director on returnal and yeah really looking forward to checking out this uh speed run with you yeah so today we're going to be looking at a a full game speed run by the okay player and yeah just full disclaimer we haven't actually seen any of this footage before so this is our first time going to uh be following this playthrough and okay it's already jumped in and yeah we'll try to follow follow the progress and provide some commentary along the way about the game as well so you don't think is probably picking up some speed yeah I think for me being the narrative and the Cinematic director after putting so much effort into cinematics and watching them skip but I understand okay play the game normally the first time so it's it's all good but yeah very fast movement so far through a lot of content that took us quite a long while to get right so yeah so clearly we can expect a lot of Reliance on dash and uh you know just powering through the levels as quickly as possible prioritizing of course the content that's absolutely necessary um yeah let's see and of course this is the the onboarding part of the game so I guess once we unlock the pool the pool moveset of the player we can see a lot more kind of shortcuts and uh yeah curious to see how how this goes I mean as you know the the game is procedurally uh generated or the levels are constructed in a way that's randomized every time so it's actually pretty intriguing to see how uh how one can can do a speed run for Content that's not always the same right yeah true true so curious to see like how how the level how we kind of how the world builds our naturopaths okay and how they take advantage of it or don't so it can make things a lot quicker or a lot slower so let's see so this moment with the titanops this is like it's kind of like welcome to a Eternal moment a lot of players more than likely probably won't be able to defeat this knobs the first time but it looks like ok's nailed it but for us it was a really important moment to kind of set the tone and the atmosphere and also the challenge for Celine and she's just crash landed on natural costs and uh everything's hostile so that was like a key hostility Spike you could say and a good welcome to the experience wow that was cool yeah very smooth like a pickup in the street at the same time okay I managed to dispatch Titan UPS really really quickly there some really calculated yeah headshots so those are really cool okay yeah and this is something I'm really interested to see as well because we do have a a pretty diverse range of weapons and of course every time you play the game it's pretty much down to lock what you will find in that run uh since this is coming from a fresh save you can of course prioritize uh certain weapons if you memorize but they're unlocked but if you're really curious to see what kind of weapon choices okay is going to make for you know getting over some of the bosses for instance yeah the interesting thing I just saw is so we have the area scan in return where if you push R3 uh you'll basically get like a a pulse so you'll be able to see where doors are I noticed that okay just use that for a way we didn't expect it basically like managed to see the doors so knew where to run when to leave this this sort of gate in between that was pretty cool yeah location exit seems fixed and yeah very much so avoiding the combat but obviously I think fraternal is so much about like the uh the flow and the experience so um yeah it's interesting to see all these jumps and skips and yeah it's cool that obviously we have the timer in the settings as well so we can already see it on the right hand side the Run Cycle so there you go there's the area scan so um obviously OK has played before so it's been spamming out of it yeah okay so yeah I went through the okay so gut health yeah upper silphium oh man this is moving pretty fast yeah burning through the overgrown ruins it's been really great like um thanks for everyone who's played return all so far but it's been awesome to hear all the stories of people's Journeys through the game for some people it's uh it's just an experience they can kind of Breeze through for others I there's been some like Social Media stuff with people that have spent like 20 hours in the overgrown ruins to finally beat freaky at the end so it's I think it's been really awesome to hear all your stories and yeah thanks so much for playing it's it's great and it's it's kind of what we wanted it's a really I think flexible game in that sense it can be as incredibly challenging but I think once you get it you kind of get that see the Matrix mode you can really fly through it as you can see like okay is doing right now absolutely yeah and it's designed to reward kind of persistence and patience in a way yeah yeah of course every time that you play the game it is slightly it is different I mean you will find different encounters different room configurations different weapons and it's interesting interesting to see how player each player has had their own kind of story of how they've experienced the game exactly and of course reaching this level of upskilled and you know knowledge of like the game systems and the levels is just I don't know how many hours it takes someone to to reach this level but uh yeah this is clearly not the first time okay let's play this game so yeah and now just unlock the dash sorry the melee as well yeah the tropium blade yeah so that opens up the so-called like dmj like the that midi jump kind of combo that's that passed yeah he's doing there so making full use of the translocators so um yeah I think that's another it's like part of it for us with ratonal when we were designing it was it is like just like Celine you come onto atropos with very little information you have your Astro technology but then you need to learn the world so obviously okay has really learned atropos knows how to use the translocators knows how to use the blade um has really sort of mastered the experience whereas other players this could take hours as we said it could take some people 20 hours yeah okay he's doing it in six minutes so yeah six minutes to reach uh yeah freaky but this is something that okay really needs to they need to obviously like it needs to beat freak it pretty fast yeah and you do the kinetic rifle yeah one thing I would recommend if you're a fan of ritonal and you want to one thing that we're really proud of is like our storytelling and our like layered storytelling that all of the names in return will mean something I would tell you what this means but I would say that freaky isn't just something cool I'd say it may be worth a bit of research and you may see some Greek mythological layers there but uh yeah pretty cool all right phase two yes we have a bit of that shape so if you get really close to tricky then because the projectiles are spot from higher up they can't reach you immediately there so yeah yep health is looking a little bit like the suit Integrity is a little bit low so potentially curious when the like the silvium is going to be used well here we go probably now but interesting yeah interesting to see that maybe the the fastest strategy for dispatching freaky is uh yeah yeah they're mainly focused so that's the maybe the best uh damage per second that you can end up using yeah looks like it but yeah clearly Landing some headshots made quite a bit of impact there as well yeah and obviously like for this uh 3K for this moment this was also like some really complicated for our VFX team to kind of look into all the different obviously all the bullets that are everywhere that uh return has been really renowned for but also for the VFX so uh as you can see the Mist kind of simulates so it goes around the player and the Mist is actually to me it's like a character in the story as is like atropos it's a it's a character in returnal um obviously we'll have to see if we get to watch any of the cinematics to see the full reveals of the story but uh yeah but I I think if you know what I'm talking about you know that the mist and the uh the fog it has a bit of a connection to Celine and celine's story um all right really cool Crimson waste key here we go okay no OHS yeah makes sense yeah yeah I just need to prioritize the absolute Essentials right yeah yeah so yeah fascinating to see what kind of things we prioritize here eight minutes 45 seconds together in Ruins that's not bad that's a lot better than me really cool yeah I think for me like uh working on return all with the team and it's uh getting so much time to play the game even when it came out I uh obviously have the retail version I had to finish it one more time so uh I was pretty fast but not this fast yeah so it's interesting because I think you know the overgrown ruins it has a slightly different like level structure compared to uh the Crimson waste so it is just this this cluster of interconnected rules of course and it's interesting that uh you know the rooms of course they can be entered from many different directions so thinking back to the overgrown ruins you can have some rooms within four entrance points so you know memorizing those and uh maximizing let's say the traversal possibly this was does take a lot of time but a Mastery of the game's content uh shifting now to Crimson wastes this has a slightly different level structure with kind of like let's say three acts so here we have like the first segment of the first phase of the the level which is the outdoors area then of course you go indoors and you have the Ascension and then you have kind of like the climax at the top of the boss so in terms of level structure this is a little bit more predictable perhaps compared to the overgrown ruins but still requires quite a bit of Mastery to identify all the shortcuts and prioritize of course uh what weapons what what for your Loadout I yeah that was interesting to pick up the hollow seeker and uh obviously I wonder why it was worth the time to kind of go and scan and go through as well so yeah I think for us as well it was really important with each each world that we have a naturopath that we do have that variation so for as a player if you do spend a lot of time in the overgrown wounds when you get to the waist that feels fresh and challenging and new and it's just kind of a way for us to show more diversity and also explore the different layers of level design and game design that rather than every world is just another version of the overgrown ruins we really wanted to do something a bit special with everyone with our design team and under Henry musterman's great work so yeah yeah they're still curious on the holoca and here there seems to be a bit of an exploit uh if I'm reading this correctly yeah yeah look so I think what happened is okay so you pick up the the other weapon that has the altifier of the uh the beam oh wow yeah right if you're shooting that and then you swap weapons while shooting that then it stays on oh no so oh wow yeah okay this is going to be interesting well okay now it won't make sense this is definitely not the way to play the turtle but it's uh it's a fast way look cool yeah I think that's always the the fun and maybe the difficult part of watching some of this when you see just things that slipped your attention as a developer and uh wow it's awesome it's just like Jesus it's nice that um okay is breaking everything to make it more exciting yeah that's one thing you may notice when you play over a tunnel like there is some I think some nice destruction around if you can um if you can find it so all right yeah I was looking at the health thinking um could go a bit wrong all right 12 minutes yeah really nice cool cool momentum for sure and I guess now with the extra permanent being helper it should drastically increase the damage per second the output oh yeah oh man I think ixian's gonna have a bad time yeah yes we're gonna have a bad day yeah for sure not what he signed up for all right oh wow look at that nice yeah sneaky well yeah good work to line this I never get tired of seeing those bullet patterns yeah yeah yeah I love the um I think the music by uh Bobby Bobby acrylic and Max and Chloe and this boss fight is like some of my favorite I think it's just really driving it's um to me it's kind of like tricky when you start the game you're like wow okay this is return on and then this is like turn it up to 11 just and I think it's a real it's a real moment when you get that accomplishment and you can nail it and you beat it it's a it's a really great moment I think players absolutely yeah and it's it's so amazing to just as you were saying earlier Greg just follow player stories of how they they progress through the game and you know what bosses they get stuck on and uh what kind of strategies they try to overcome them and just the sheer Elation that you feel when they overcome them is just it's been amazing to follow actually yeah of course okay is making it look very yeah yeah I remember the first time I'd be Alexian I just I was yeah heart pumping it was it was awesome even in like the early development stages I was like this is going to be awesome like it when I think we had like one of the some of the placeholder animations in and you could get the scale and the pacing it was like yeah this is this is very cool and uh even just place order bullet patterns you could I could get the vibe and then when you get all the art in and the music and everything else going together it it really works out to be a really cool Symphony so yeah yeah I really love how this boss is kind of utilizing some new new tricks of course like we have those those damage shapes like those expanded Rings yeah and those barriers in the previous attack that lasted I think 1.7 seconds because okay just probably flooring yeah but uh yeah really great to see all of the the bullet held elements coming to the Forefront here and taking the front stage in these battles so yeah pretty quick okay so now we're now we're gonna get the the hook shot oh definitely oh okay A bit of a delay there yeah too faster okay super in the zone flow yeah I think the utilization of space has been one of our our key kind of like design principles I guess when we design the levels of course and uh we know that especially in the combat areas and even here with just the light exploration that we have paced a lot of the the hook shots to assist with like this fast traversal and of course it offers both a lot of strategic possibilities both for being offensive and you know more aggressive in your play style but also as a Quick Escape Route if you just want to get away but uh yeah really cool here to see how it's just chaining the chaining the hook shot and just gliding through a level I think something that we always asked ourselves as well when we were developing fraternal is like it's not just about it being fun once it needs to be fun again and again and again so there was a lot of precision and a lot of um iteration and tweaks to really make it fun every time the hook shots the right spot where if you can chain it you can the first time you play you may not get it you may have to jump you may be slower but to really allow you to kind of knowing that the game is about repetition it's about like understanding the cycle understanding celine's story it was really important for us um yeah yeah as you said Greg I think we often ask ourselves like how fun will this be to play a hundred times later yes not only the first time and generally the rule was that anything that's only fun once should only be experienced once yes so for some of the you know more introductory kind of rooms or these kind of slower paced moments yeah uh we allow players to experience them at their own pace the first time and then they are effectively removed from the from the loop so we can focus on the more intense and uh engaging portions of the game yeah yeah very cool and this is of course from a press save so this is the first one with all of the cinematics and everything I mean of course we're skipping the house sequences but uh and I guess a lot of the other cinematics as well that are crucial for the uh for the progression but yeah here we have the the beacon of course so that was a necessary aspect that's true my narrative hat I'd say yeah you've got to do the houses as well but yeah that's um I think there's a lot of cool stuff in the house but if you haven't played returnal then it's uh yeah something that's a really interesting part of how we try to explore celine's character and let you literally like experience it firsthand but uh yeah it doesn't seem like we'll see him this time in this uh this play through but yeah and the logs we've seen a lot of Celine logs uh yeah but it's cool to see that the game uh the way that's been structured it does favor let's say a speed run style playthrough quite uh quite well yeah and I think one one of the key decisions there was that we wanted to keep The Narrative of course rich and and deep but also fairly unintrusive and like the the main kind of like flow of the game that's why of course the houses are entirely optional yeah in a way and yeah if you just want to focus on like the the gameplay and the flow and finding that forward momentum then the game allows you to just just do that so exactly yeah that was that was definitely our philosophy it was always something that you engage with um by default so uh yeah it's definitely been good so it's like yeah 19 minutes in yeah oh I was I was really curious to see the automaton to see like how how AK would have gone but uh yeah all right yeah to be fair I think with a lot of our lives here we go okay so here are the yeah the damage here with the current Loadout yeah it doesn't seem to be that crushing for Nemesis so might be able to sneak in a couple of hits but yeah once again I really really always happy to see I never get tired of seeing like these little elaborate bullet patterns and that kind of neon neon flare and okay so first phase is pretty much done already yeah in a sequence like this it takes obviously lots of Animation VFX great work from the art team obviously uh audio um even down to like The Narrative of how we get in there and how we get out it's um it was really important for us to have this really special moment for the players that um you fight so hard and just when you think you understand a boss in return this one turns you upside down and spits you out so uh I think uh this has been from what I've seen a lot of our big highlight for a lot of people and literally the Nemesis the the name is intentional that this is uh this is supposed to be a point that when you overcome it you're down the rabbit hole in the next moment but uh yeah yeah yeah and of course we are going to be seeing the rest of the game uh pretty soon so I guess it's pretty pretty open spoiler territory of course for the 2x structure yep but uh yeah the idea was for this spot to make it feel like a really climactic battle to almost feel like the final boss fight like what you would expect from uh from an epic final battle and I think that also helps with the next step which is of course the the mid game kind of narrative beat that we have the you know the uh a bit of a Twist that we we have there that we'll look at soon I think it also helps it land a bit harder because you overcome this Monumental task yeah like oh okay now I must have I must have accomplished something right and then the game just kind of throws you throws you back into it and uh all of our bosses were designed for this maximum let's say uh impact on many fronts and yeah clearly good opportunity to show his uh our cool VFX and uh art Direction and the music of course as always I think this is where the the game really is firing on on all the cylinders you know when you have all of the all the elements coming together in a symphony as you said earlier yeah yeah definitely and I think he has a shared like the point of this was to kind of subvert like what was coming up ahead and do something really bold where as well as it being a bold fight um so shame you can't hear it in 3D audio but the bullets flying past it's like one of my favorite things but yeah basically like um really wanted to have this solid twist that rammed home because as you know when you land on atropos if you haven't played basically you're trying to follow this signal and you you've done it you've found the signal but that's not really what you need to do that's not what you need to do with Celine my natural costs so um yeah yeah what what is the secret of actual pass yeah I don't think we're going to go into that unfortunately yeah but uh nonetheless it's uh all very intentional power everything builds up and wanting to explore that and I think this this uh floating between platforms are once again it's it was like in the early prototypes from the design team that you could already see was going to be really interesting and Innovative and haven't played a boss like this before I have a that was a really big thing for everyone involved in return or to do something really special that hopefully people remember in the future as well yeah and what I need you to pull off I mean this this is kind of uh uh breaking some of the normal rules I guess that we have in the normal level design so this needed its own kind of unique treatment but definitely feel like it was worth it to give players something quite quite memorable as well for sure yeah we were quite careful with how we wanted to present again a year ago nope bye bye let me switch I always like to think of that as a bit of an homage to like um Resogun and oh yeah I think that we've been wearing our shoot them up influencers quite proudly on our sleeve ah there you go we get a bit of story I don't think you can skip that one so nice to see some hints of what's to come and the Laser's still burning oh no the stress signal acknowledged okay so Celine is saved right so game is over okay let's pack up yeah that's even uh what Jane is Celine it's kind of what he says yeah has to receive my signal I guess that's it oh wow and the beam is still there yeah oh man so yeah we really wanted to build up this this whole moment and relief even Celine is relieved she's been told just to wait she's done it um yeah that's the whole reason why she came here this this must be this must be it Escape oh okay but it's not and the game continues so yes okay so here we are starting act two a bit of a familiar environment but with a slightly different presentation now with the echoing runes yeah and for this obviously now you've seen it the idea is that Celine Khan she can't just leave this she actually uh lived a happy life uh you could say happy uh past and actually passed she wakes up back on naturopath so she didn't break the cycle the Cycle's still here cycle is still here to break her exactly yeah so now she needs to continue to really understand why she's here but to make things even worse this world that the players understood and Celine has understood has completely changed in front of her eyes there's the house everyone's favorite all right okay so picking up pylon launcher right yeah so okay it's a cool cool strategic choice I think this weapon does have a lot of uh Firepower like potential as well so let's see where we need to use it actually I thought that was a really cool cool way to kind of reframe some some content that was uh to a certain degree familiar to players with the overgrown rules but give it a fresh perspective and recontextual there's a lot of things and feedback into the mystery as well like where am I when am I as well and how it all ties into into sadine's personal story and this is uh uh this was a kind of special biome in a way as well because of the audio perspective it does build up to the climactic encounter with uh Hyperion as well so it's all very kind of like these these teasing kind of notes throughout the environment of what's the car and those who have played the game and in the cinematics and the final ending they they know that the musical kind of uh the melody that we have there is of a certain significance to the Celine story yeah yeah so I think these are things that players who have played the game of course are presumably watching a full game speed run are aware of possible spoilers so yeah not giving away too much but yeah it is going to build up to the Hyperion boss fight and yeah really really happy with how that old sequence played out we'll get to try it out or see it pretty soon actually but just with audio audio design perspective as well I think it was something you know especially memorable moment for players yeah that's the thing so I think a lot of the levels that we have uh this is one of the one of the few exceptions that you actually are forced to of course kill an enemy before the the doors open to advance yeah so I mean we do have this this formula in a variety of different rooms we have the kind of Arena like rooms with the layers of multiple challenges but for Speed Run uh pretty much most of the rooms allow you to just circumvent the challenge of the power through so it does support that that forward momentum in many ways but still yeah cool to see some uh some of okay's uh combat skills as well here with uh dispatching the elite yeah it's amazing just looking all this all this work just fly by yeah all this amazing stuff but it's amazing skill like this uh playing the game quite a lot cannot do this so yeah huge props and um amazing pacing through everything even that is a challenging challenging like combat and uh you really need to use the space it's quite mobile um so yeah it's it's nice to see that yeah okay it's really mastered that as well as the exact place to drop Dash go through um yeah it's awesome yeah because For Speed Run especially I mean you need to be adapting to what the game is is throwing at you quite on the fly so you need to identify kind of like where to teleport to what exits to take and I think yeah the mini map and of course the the R3 kind of like scanning as you said Greg that does help a little bit on that front yeah and of course there are a lot of groups like this one that are fixed in the pipeline and you can maybe optimize let's say your your traversal as well yeah this was what I was referring to of course the build up to Hyperion so I think a lot of the a lot of the build that the atmosphere might be a bit lost when uh when doing it when okay yeah okay it's going through with that like a Breakneck Pace but uh yeah yeah I think for Russia was once again about the repetition and the replayability that it was supposed to be the first time you're playing through the um the equine ruins you like is that is that like a an organ plane and then generally obviously a lot of players are going to be quite challenged and you'll really have to fight through all the ruins to really get here but it's kind of like I think fraternals about piecing together the puzzle and this was a very clear like sound design way for us to allow you to piece the puzzle of the story and see and once again I would I would say if you're curious to look into a name I think iberian's a good name to uh to learn and understand yeah so all of these of course have been inspired by by Greek mythology and there are some some nuances there that tie back to the sabine's predicament and maybe her history as well and uh won't give too much away but uh yeah I guess we've tried to to plant a lot of these these seeds that can attract those attention and although these are small small pieces of the larger puzzle of course now these bullet patterns are awesome as well yeah yeah I keep saying the same thing but I just don't get tired of seeing this the neon player and like the yeah itano circus style kind of homie Miss dancing the bullet hell and the patterns and yeah cool use of the um Island driver as well it's kind of cleaning the ground like just melting that health bar yeah I really I feel like yeah all of the really happy with how the boss battles actually uh came through in the end so each one feels kind of you know special and memorable and I think this one also has a quite quite a profound kind of role in the in the story I guess from the symbolic picnic place as well okay so here we are I think with this part of the experience as well if you think that we've shifted from act one until like act two it was also about beginning to kind of subvert what a boss is you're used to saying bosses a certain way this boss becomes a bit more uh if everything or naturopath was more alien now I speak I mean a bit more psychological a bit more human so it's kind of um developing into something and uh same way the world has grown you upside down after your failed Escape um this is kind of part of that you could say the world almost crumbling around so they in a sense that she's beginning to understand that atropos is more than it seems and it knows things about it that it shouldn't know and it always is known so just escaping it isn't enough she has to has to go more in interior more into yourself to survive absolutely yeah Okay cool so we got the Patrick key the expressway done yep well that was amazing catching that yeah it's a really cool very cool isn't that grapple point just it's interesting the technique of standing right in the middle I guess that is the quickest way so cool there's no way that you can fast skip the opening animation you know you've got to prepare yeah but uh yeah impressive all right I can definitely shifting away I I think the first half of the game as you mentioned Greg would do try to subvert expectations a little bit and you know it's like Alex tumbling down the rabbit hole that things appear a certain way when you start playing the game and you feel okay I just I have this singular mission of finding like the source of the broadcast signal but then as you go deeper and deeper than you know your your perception of of the game and the reality you're actually starts changing as well or evolving so yeah really cool yeah but this is going to be interesting so obviously if you've played this is an optional thing you can do to really get some cool Loot and just rack up the other lights but um in the uh yeah in this within the fractured place we basically you need to do this so it's not a choice but okay okay it needs to overcome quite a challenging scenario and the Seven here of talk I know when I was playing at home even this after we shipped it was still like oh man this is something yeah for sure yeah it's tough but I think the strategy is right this is what I do just to hedge the bets that try to get this part out of the way and then the rest of it's a bit easier but yeah fractured waists are tough really love the uh the music and just the uh yeah just the whole overall experience I think for us when we were designing return it was about as you said surprising players and in terms of the gameplay variation in terms of what happens when you die in terms of the environments so I think When You're Expecting uh Crimson waste instead you get a frozen world it was um it was another big moment we really wanted to kind of it's done stun the player and really once again like create a special memory for them when they play Return they get it absolutely yeah so I wanted to create this feeling of having this Grand Adventure of course but also have a lot of depth so in the systems and the weapons and like the items and uh you know the Strategic boxes that player has with the enemies and so on so it's like the gift that keeps on giving in a way and we wanted to have this really memorable kind of uh milestones for your progress too so from beginning to end keep players on edge not knowing what to expect and yeah I have some really cool moments and yeah here this is a tough moment this is a tough moment speaking of which yeah yeah okay he's doing doing great as always yeah smooth got all those bullets yeah I think the applying bullet hell to like a 3D environment like this it does really challenge your spatial awareness so you need to kind of have a 360 kind of General feel of what's Happening you know there's so many bullets kind of just lingering there's like the the expanding shapes you know that are a bit slower but you still have to plan around them and yeah it does compartmentalize the gameplay in a way and yeah we'll see the hook shot of course does give you a really really fast fast Escape Route in a way so just some Escape options where things get a bit too tight and yeah you probably want to keep these guys at a distance because they can get pretty nasty up close with uh yeah I feel stuck by anyways like yeah the way okay did it is it's the way yeah yeah but as you said it was um coming into return tunnel I think like incredible work for like the game design team to take like a how smart game like what is essentially a how smart game and transfer it into this whole new paradigm and um create something really interesting it was amazing for me joining a little bit after the first Proto just seeing that it worked like wow this is a housemart game and third person with this like bullet ballet this like politologist it was it was a dream to play even from the start it was just getting everything else to catch up and expanding and it's um yeah it's yeah really proud of everyone involved it's yeah definitely I think it pulled up really well even um just playing the game a bit more now it's it's yeah it's it still still got it for me absolutely yeah super proud of what we accomplished with the team and hats off once again to the entire house smart team and our partners of course who helped us make this uh massive step up in our house Mark Legacy so yeah a lot of the first conditional kind of house Mark uh creative DNA seems to survive the transition to 3D as well yeah yeah I mean this did start out as a dream project and yeah it's to list something quite quite special for for many of us so really really really cool to see it see this level of Mastery of course now okay yeah yeah there's a Time investment that players have have devoted to this and yeah really cool yeah so it seems just keep keeping your distance from the severed seems to be like a pretty healthy strategy oh you just see what happened yep here we go here we go over the extra yeah well that's the thing I think for uh okay it was probably dreaming from the uh yeah basically from the start and act two that you could just get that old fire so yeah I was wondering about that yeah so I'm sure it wasn't a choice it was that this was the that's how the cars were dealt so yeah yeah luck of course luck plays a role quite a bit as well but even there it was cool how those two prioritize you're jumping straight through the yeah the challenge and just accept that okay receiving a bit of damage is worth it in many cases just to get through a bit faster yeah that's a really cool and I think that is something that it's it's nice to see it used this way that in return all like you can just run there is that fight or flight if you get into a room and you're like no thank you you can just just bolts like okay and uh it may be the thing you need like if you're low on health if you can just get through one more one more space it could be exactly what you need so uh it's definitely yeah I think even I I use that in like how I've played if it gets a bit too rough I just you just bounce and uh hope for the cards to land the right way sometimes yeah yeah but there is a clear trade-off there because clearly you don't invest that time in building up your character like increasing your maximum health yeah and getting like the optimal loadout and then when you are of course to actually fight then the odds are severely against you of course so not a strategy for everyone for sure yeah it is interesting but okay just looking at how small the ovalides count is the mayor was a lot of a lot of playing and building up to get Celine in a really good State for the like the whole cycle that we're in to really get a chance to survive but yeah uh oblites are clearly not a concern it's uh just execution and uh yeah great great speed okay so I think we should be done here right so I didn't do something I mean the things are just moving so fast I might have missed some key beats here but yeah finally here final beat here we are So speaking once again of wanting to do another twist for us it was like okay so you've conquered a lot of atropos but you haven't conquered the depths of it and yeah conquered the the abyss so uh in that sense uh this was another like another moment which hopefully yeah people really enjoyed yeah and big symbolic significance for the story as well of course I mean and there is the obvious layers of like going going to the depths of atropos going to the depths of maybe maybe your past maybe some puzzle pieces here as well and I think there's just almost like this Primal primal fear that you feel also when you're at this like deep underwater you know it's it's clearly not your your natural habitat yeah and yeah really really happy with how this biome came together as well and I was going to say it's really interesting to see how we have like the the dmj like the past traversal with like the dash melee jump and of course here with the low with gravity it allows for some really impressive shortcuts as well so for sure yeah yeah I mean technically a lot of these you can do of course with just maybe the more traditional kind of jump and dash and so on but it's clear that there's there's a masterful knowledge of the of the level layouts and just knowing exactly where to shop at which moment just to get yeah like there's also like I think as you are underwater there's also the floatiness in the controls which I think adds a real nice layer where Justice Celine has understood she's conquered all these spaces then once again there's another another challenge for you and for many players it is about starting again in the echoing ruins like conquering that collecting the experience but but okay it was clearly understanding so much about the gank and just just burn through without needing that cycle to really get through it yeah I think traditionally underwater levels tend to have a bit of a bad reputation in games you know but uh they're really really happy with how we managed to pull it off here so I think the the floatiness just adds a little bit of that freshness to kind of the uh the biome um but it doesn't slow down the game thing it actually helps you take some some more impressive uh shortcuts and control the momentum even more than playing at this level so yeah oh no it's just really like powering through yeah and I think we really wanted to like play don't show so for a lot of us you can see like okay just has that freedom to just flow through the experience and really just um get into flow which is such an important thing with how smart games like getting you in the zone and understanding so it's yeah good to see this all working and singing together oh yeah I remember this moment but yeah here we go uh yeah this is I remember when this was first added it was like wow this is this is challenging but yeah it was just when you think you're close we decided it's one of my favorite moments here for sure I think I really loved just how the how the enemy appears it's awesome it's just really Majestic yeah underwater it's yeah I think even for okay probably there was a tiny bit of stress very cool playing but uh yeah I think we timed that uh that thing where it appears just really nicely where you're like okay yeah I've got this and then nope maybe I don't so no yeah but since we're doing of course really well with with health and of course there's uh the health uh silicone vials yeah as well as a fallback so oh there you go first bullets yeah yeah they're okay yeah for sure oh no fabricator costs increased by 25 yeah whatever will okay do yeah yeah yeah it doesn't seem to mind about luck not fabricating or uh or the houses but still here we go here we go this is it I haven't seen many players asking what this thing is but I won't say anything that's better left to uh yeah I have no nothing to comment on that either so yeah here we are beginning of the end I remember seeing the first Concepts from the uh the art team for this and yeah it was we kind of explained about what we were trying to do with the story and how we subverted and each boss is getting more connected to Celine they're all connected but more visually connected so um the first Concepts once again you could you could see what was happening it was just a hell of a lot of hard work to push through to get there but it's really rewarding to see it and as as Harry's saying like yeah it doesn't doesn't get old yeah oh that's cool I didn't know there was yeah that we have that we have a club I didn't know that that's great foreign this before but I really enjoy how how the bullet patterns shut yeah it's also in just the whole experience it's uh by doing a really great boss it's almost like designing its own game because the rules are changed the uh the way that it plays so it's a huge amount of work but something that yeah it's for us it's really worth the investment to do something really special because we're creating like a really magnificent moment here we go uh I love this face this one's uh yeah and the sound design as well it sounds designed the music I think it's a pretty they're all creepy yeah climax yeah I remember like some of the uh audio samples and stuff the sound design team we're using for this where um yeah pretty pretty interesting and uh horrific of when you're going through and the layers of the sounds used to achieve particularly the uh the death cried which I think we'll have to listen to it okay was um yeah it was it was interesting to hear that broken down and we're saying a lot that's all I'll say with those layers if you if you want to try to pick it apart and this is a fairly dark room as well so it actually really helps the bullets pop a lot more it's really high contrast comes with readability yeah quite a bit and yeah makes it really Crystal Clear where you need to like those mini mini kind of Pathways that you have to plan to kind of avoid the bullets effectively and we do have the beams of course that uh there's the Dark versions of the beams that you can't attach to so you can but you do receive damage I'd like the normal ones that you can just stay through so yeah okay here it is another final descent and we really wanted this to be like a bit of a palette cleanser like a mood shift where you've gone from this Mega high intensity into this uh bit of a slower okay that was impressive yeah I was really looking forward to that what was traded reveal okay here we are and we have the beam as a companion as well and well there you go with that I recommend you watch the ending I mean if you if you get there but uh yeah yeah amazing my feeling is that this was the first time that okay has actually finished the game so it's probably probably seen the ending a few times to get out yeah that was amazing that was fast really cool all right time for confirmation this has been really cool to see how this screen's been used by the community absolutely wow there you go 48 minutes 52 seconds not even say 49 seconds to give her okay yeah great work very cool that was that was awesome yeah yeah so thanks a lot to everyone for for sticking with us until the end so we had a lot of fun looking at this speed run so lots of lots of really cool techniques and yeah thanks again to okay and to IGN of course for setting this up so yeah thanks guys and see you on atropos yeah see you there [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: IGN

Views: 556,676

Keywords: Feature, Housemarque, IGN, PS5, Returnal, Roguelike / Rogue-Lite, Shooter, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Third-Person, XDev Studios Europe, returnal 4k, returnal fresh save, returnal glitch, returnal glitches, returnal no death run, returnal one life, returnal speedrun, Roguelike, Rogue-Lite

Id: zSLeJvkOeIg

Length: 50min 27sec (3027 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/cavecavecave]

Quick comment from someone who runs the game, this is a (very impressive) 1.3 run from okae that uses the void beam glitch. We have a new leaderboard for current patch (without that glitch) as well as different categories that include much shorter lengths. I strongly encourage people who love the game to join the discord and try it out!

[u/ReaperEngine]

I wonder if this is the one with the void beam glitch, which uh...really trivialized things.