One-Eighty

It's pretty rare for me to completely change my opinion on a video game, but the aptly named Returnal has done just that.  When playing through this game for the first time, I think it's easy to get the impression that the entire experience is just hallucinations or a dream.  It's a well worn trope used in all kinds of media.  Games are no exception with some recent examples being Rime, Untold Stories, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.  However, upon closer examination, that might not be the case with Returnal.

Probably the single biggest indicator that the events of the game aren't all just happening in protagonist's head is the lack of a surprise revelation scene.  There's no pulling back of the proverbial curtain to reveal our heroine, Selene, wearing a straight jacket in a padded cell or a Jacob's Ladder moment where we see her floating facedown in a river.  Even so, there are a number of obtuse hints and tantalizing clues that point toward that and in the opposite direction.

Stepping back and viewing Returnal as a whole, it's not hard to notice a lot of dualities: Dead/Alive, Past/Present, Internal/External, Objective/Subjective.  Even Selene's eye are heterochromatic implying she is part of two separate and distinctly different domains...and yet, as everyone knows, eyes work in pairs.  The lack of concrete information (due to a severe case of unreliable narrator) can lead to contradictions.  Is Selene the daughter of Theia or is she an idealized version of what Theia hoped to become?  At a metaphorical level those two things could be one in the same.

I've seen a lot of back-and-forth online as to whether Helios is Selene's brother or son.  I'm not sure of either, but there might be a third possibility...he could be both.  It's gross and implies an incestuous relationship between Selene and her father (something there isn't much evidence for), but it would be keeping with the ancient Greek thematic elements present throughout the game (an Electra Complex, and all that).  For now though let's forget about it, Jack.  It's Chinatown.

Another duality that exists is the books in Selene's house.  She appears to have a fondness for both science fiction and mythology.  The former is obviously about a speculative future while the latter is about a magical past.  Neither actually exists and yet both coexist in the realm of fiction.  The creators of Returnal have gone on record stating that they are big fans of the cosmic horror subgenre.  The world of Atropos they created also feels like it's comfortably wedged somewhere between "Solaris" and Silent Hill.  The fundamental gameplay mechanic of live-die-repeat, normally an implicit game mechanic, is made explicit here in a way reminiscent of the novel "All You Need is Kill."  If you don't know what I'm talking read the synapsis of the film "Edge of Tomorrow" and that should clarify things a bit.

Moving on...there is the cryptic "White Shadow," something that sounds like yet another contradiction and yet exists in some form.  I've heard theories suggesting that it's a metaphor for the moon, or the name of an old rock song, but I prefer to think of it as the enigmatic astronaut that periodically appears over the course of the game.  Aside from being all white, it has a ghostly quality in that it doesn't seem subject to the constraints of normal time and space.  Could it be the shadow of an object occupying a higher number of dimensions?  That might sound like a stretch, but remember that the true antagonist of this game, Xaos, would fit nicely into the Cthulhu Mythos pantheon.  In particular, it can manipulate space and time in ways incomprehensible to us humans.  Despite having this mind-boggling power, there do appear to be limits as to what it can accomplish.  The Hivemind resists its influence, necessitating the lure that brings Selene to Atropos.

Now, here's were the car accident comes into the story.  Quick tangent: why is always a car accident in these kinds of games?  Soma, Dear Esther, and a few other games I've already mentioned the names of in this blogpost have one as a critical plot point.  People really need to drive more carefully...Anyway, I've read arguments for there actually being two car crashes along with evidence to support this in the form of different looking headlights on the cars seen in the game.  What if, though, these two accidents are the same just with some changes made by Xaos.  That might be pushing things, but I will stress again; it has the ability to manipulate time and space.  By extending its influence back into the past it can alter (but not necessarily rewrite) what comes after.  Again, that probably sounds like it would invite a vast array of contradictions...of which many are present in the game.  Selene is both alive and dead.  She was shot down and she shot herself down.  She was in a car crash and caused herself to crash.  She is dreaming and yet in a real place.  The planet Atropos has been labeled a Sisyphean purgatory by some people on the internet.  I can certainly see why they came to that conclusion.  Visually, it looks at least somewhat inspired by Wayne Barlowe's artbook entitled "Inferno."  Then again, couldn't Atropos simply be a cosmic trap designed to ensnare the damned?  Why not that and some form of afterlife?  From Selene's perspective they might as well be one in the same.  Is she "ascending" by trying to work her way through grief and pain?...or is it by becoming an Astra Scout and leaving it all behind?  Is being "severed" a metaphor for trauma victim?...or does it mean being the tool of an alien god?  Under these bizarre conditions, is there any irreconcilable quality to these pairs of conditions?  

One of the forum threads I visited when preparing to write this had a poll in it asking which theory people ascribed to: "TeamReal," "TeamFake," or "TeamBoth."  I, personally, am going with "Team it-does-matter."  It's not as elegant as the other three, but the inability to put the events if Returnal into nice neat categories - compatible with the bubble humanity resides in - is the essence of cosmic horror.  The fundamental nature of the universe isn't what humans think it is, let alone what it should be.  That aspect of Returnal won me over to it in the end.  Hopefully, I haven't lost any sanity as a result.