Returnal patch will roll out today — here's how to make sure it doesn't mess up your progress

Returnal patch will roll out today — here's how to make sure it doesn't mess up your progress

If you've been playing "Returnal," you know how grueling this roguelike cycle can be. What you may not know, however, is that a major patch is being released today that could ruin your progress. But developer Housemarque has your back and has released a PSA on how to avoid this.

The studio took to Twitter to remind PS5 users ahead of the update, which will take place today, May 5, at 12 p.m. Pacific Time / 3 p.m. Eastern Time / 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The tweet says 7 p.m. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), but it appears that someone in the studio got the timezone wrong. However, we recommend implementing a workaround well before that so that you don't have to know if this is a typo or if it was strangely deployed out of time.

In short, you need to turn off automatic updates in the PS5 system settings. Otherwise, even if you interrupt the game and leave the console turned on/on break mode, the cycle will reset when the update starts. The developer has linked to the PlayStation support page, which details how to turn off automatic updates.5]

To turn off automatic updates, go to Settings > Saved Data and Game/App Settings > Automatic Updates. Here you will find two options that you can toggle on and off: "Automatic download" and "Automatic installation in rest mode".

Toggling these off will allow you to download updates manually. Since the nature of the game is such that you have probably just died another horrible death, taking a break to download and install updates is a good time to take a break.

As mentioned in our review of Returnal, the game has no autosave feature or way to save your progress. The only options the player has are to interrupt the game and leave the console turned on or put it in rest mode. Switching to another game, closing an application, or turning off the console would return the player to Helios.

Despite this rather major drawback, we gave the game a 4.5/5. It is one of the few next-gen-only titles to be released, and impressively showcases the PS5's SSD and dual-sense controller capabilities. UK residents can save 20% off Returnal and the upcoming Resident Evil Village on eBay. This offer runs all week, so don't miss out.

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