Returnal was the first game Housemarque developed that wasn’t a shoot ’em up and it gathered an extremely positive reception from both players and critics. Housemarque has already said their next game will not be Returnal 2, instead choosing to go for a new IP. This doesn’t mean Returnal 2 won’t ever happen, though, with the game being a possibility after this next title is done.
Could Returnal 2 ever happen?
Housemarque’s next game will not be Returnal 2. The unannounced game is a brand new IP made for PlayStation instead. However, this doesn’t mean there won’t ever be a sequel to Returnal. Housemarque’s Senior Narrative Designer Eevi Korhonen told VGC “if we return to Selene’s story after [the new game] remains to be seen”, but at the moment “I can’t comment on that too much.”
Returnal was an ambitious game that left a lot of ideas on the cutting room floor. Housemarque’s new game was in the very early stages of development back in March, with talk of the game still being in the concept stage. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched, then, that Korhonen said the team may be looking at reusing some of the scrapped ideas from Returnal after they had to leave a lot of stuff behind:
Returnal was so ambitious. We dreamt super big, but we still had to leave so much on the cutting room floor. All of these ideas and narrative systems. I’m super excited to pick up those pieces and see how those fit our new IP story.
We didn’t quite have the handle on how big [Returnal] was going to be, building for a new platform on a new engine with a new team, all of those things require some learning. Now we have that team that has gone through the fire and learned how to build a game like Returnal. So now we get to start off stronger.
In other news, there are no plans for DLC for TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge at the moment, but this may change in the future. Elsewhere, if you’re wondering what games to play from the PS Plus Extra collection, someone has sorted them by average review rating.
