Returnal releases its first patch today – be careful how you download it

As the PlayStation 5’s debut exclusive, Returnal made quite a splash. The general consensus over the game is that it is brilliant, exhilarating, a masterful showcase of the PS5 hardware, and punishingly difficult. One of the common complaints many players and reviewers have is that while patience and skill can gradually overcome Returnal’s gauntlet of challenges, the lack of save features makes runs harder than they to be, and for no good reason.

Developer Housemarque is releasing the game’s first patch today, and the community hopes that it will address the lack of save points in the game. However, the patch comes with a warning: disable your PS5’s auto-update function.

The reason for this warning lies with the core problem with Returnal that this update will hopefully fix. Currently, you can’t save your Returnal run just anywhere. If you need to stop playing in the middle of a run, you have to put your PlayStation in Rest Mode, which suspends your run until you can return to it, and keeps the game running. If an update comes in while the auto-update function is enabled, Returnal will close in order to install it, and your run will be lost.

The first post-launch patch for Returnal drops today at 1 PM ET. Housemarque should release patch notes alongside it. If you have an in-progress run, turn off auto-update on your console, finish your run, and then close Returnal and install the update.