Kirk Hamilton

And it's kind of just like, it's never as bad as I think it is.

You know, even when enemies warp in in the middle of a fight and there's a kind of sub boss chasing me around the room, it's never quite as bad as it seems.

And if I just kind of slow down for a second while kind of holding the thumb stick forward, I'm usually okay.

And I find that that mobility is the key though to staying alive.

You have to be smart about it.

You have to make your choices as to when to be aggressive.

And, like, I don't like playing with a shotgun, for example, because it's really short-range.

And I vastly prefer a long-range weapon where I can kind of keep something between me and every enemy.

Like the first sub-boss that you'll fight is just this big, huge bruiser dude who jumps at you and has a couple of kind of nuke attacks that'll do a lot of damage.

He's so easy if you just run in a circle and keep some element of the environment between you and him.

And that's something I guess I just do instinctively from Returnal.

I don't think it's some mind-blowing strategy.

I'm sure a lot of people do this.

The levels are designed to make you do that.

But that's really crucial, I think, is to just move in circles around the edge of the room and try to keep your wits about you in terms of location.

I also find, actually, I play this some on the TV and then mostly on a computer monitor.

I find it way better on a computer monitor, in part because you do have a mini-map

This isn't a game where you need a map to navigate exactly, but in combat it's super helpful to look down and it's kind of like Halo or whatever, you see red dots.

And in some of those fights, especially later, when you're fighting a big beefer and they're pushing you around the room, suddenly adds will just...

spawn in and if you're not paying attention you can really lose a lot of health just because there's like a dude standing right behind you who starts shooting you that you didn't even realize was there so looking at the map i've found that's super helpful and on the tv it's like the screen is a little too big like there's too much to take in and it's so visually overwhelming and so easy to lose your head and the minute you start to panic or get too excited that's when you start taking damage and and pretty quickly die