Ben Lindbergh

But the difference is that Returnal was sort of a solo act.

It was just Selene on her own kind of, you know, Samus-esque.

I'm landing on this alien planet and I have to go on a journey and figure out my past selves and I'm going to learn and everything.

In this game, there is a wider cast.

And so you have some NPCs who sort of stand around your base, your hub, where you go back to get dispensed some story every time you die.

And they have some light interaction, but it's all sort of in the same vein of basically, you know, all of your colleagues are cracking up one after another, right?

And some of them have already lost it.

It's sort of like the movie Sunshine, which I love.

It's like, don't stare at the sun.

Every time there's an eclipse, people lose their minds.

And yeah, it's a little...

One note and also very mysterious early on, at least, because there's another quest and mission that the protagonist here is pursuing in addition to the company mandate.

And more of that becomes clear as the game goes on.

And shorter too, right?

Yes.

The runs are a lot shorter than in Returnal, which is welcome because, I mean, you were settling in for a long run in Returnal, which was demoralizing when you died and meant that you couldn't actually do anything else while you were doing that.

You couldn't switch to a different game or anything.

Here, we're talking half hour-ish, maybe, for a decent run, right?

And you actually, you have to die in order to see the story, which is kind of funny.

I mean, if you're too good at the game,