'Returnal' Gets New Co-op And Survival Modes In New Update

The latest State of Play show from Sony showed off some interesting new titles and updates to popular games, including an upcoming update for the successful third-person roguelike shooter “Returnal” by Housemarque.

Later this March, the developers will release the “Ascension” expansion, which is set to add a two-player co-op feature to “Returnal’s” main adventure as well as a new survival mode called the Tower of Sisyphus.

“Returnal” was mainly designed to be a single-player experience, according to game director Harry Krueger, but they have since decided to add a cooperative mode to the main game mode across Atropos.

Co-op can be played by interacting with a Chronosis portal found in select parts of the game, which will allow players to either host a public game or join one that’s already in progress. These sessions can be set to Private for friends-only games.

There are some limitations to co-op mode, though. Players will be tethered to each other, which means that both co-op partners won’t be able to split ways while in the game, and much of a session’s progress will be beneficial to the game host only.

The other part of the update, the Tower of Sisyphus, sticks with “Returnal’s” arcade mechanics by offering a survival mode about going up a never-ending tower. As players go up, the challenges on each floor become increasingly harder.

Unlike the main campaign, the player’s objective in the Tower of Sisyphus is to simply see how far they get before they eventually succumb to the enemies within. Scores will be tracked and saved on a leaderboard.

According to Krueger, this game mode is supposed to serve as a condensed version of “Returnal” that focuses on the key gameplay mechanics with little exploration or narrative storytelling.

This doesn’t mean that the Tower of Sisyphus won’t play a part in the main story. Krueger also mentioned that the tower itself will hold some deeper relevance to the game’s lore, and it will give players more insight into the protagonist Selene’s state of mind.

The “Ascension” update will also bring more levels, items and a new boss monster to the game. It will officially launch on the PS5 and PC on March 22.