Returnal Story line

Returnal is shaping up to be the game of the year with its unusual storyline and gameplay style. The Returnal Story revolves around the journey of a space explorer Selene, who has crash-landed on a mysterious, living, and breathing planet. The game is a roguelike shooter and the players are stuck in a time loop, every time they are defeated, they have to start the game from the beginning. The Returnal Ending has been made a little confusing and open to interpretation. Many players want the Returnal Ending explained.

Returnal Ending explained

After defeating the great Sea Monster Boss, Ophion, the players will be taken to a crater, where they will see a car submerged underwater for quite some time. When they enter the car, the game takes them into a flashback sequence, where a mother and child are on the road with the radio playing. The mother looks like Selene and the child is assumed to be hers. The child asks the mother if she’s able to see a white shadow on the road.

Suddenly the radio starts to cut out, and the mother is distracted when she suddenly sees a white figure, that appears to be an astronaut in a vintage suit. She swerves the car in order to avoid the white figure and ends up crashing into the bridge, which topples the car into the water. The mother gets out of the wreckage and tries to pull her child out too, but fails to do so. She is then pulled away from the car, supposedly by the astronaut figure.

Many have interpreted that the events of the Returnal plot are a part of Selene’s dream. The accident was a traumatic incident for her and in order to cope with the situation, she placed herself into this time loop on a mysterious planet. Many don’t agree with this interpretation as there are other false endings that place Selene on earth for a while before she is pulled back into the time loop again. The ending of the game is open to interpretation, but there is a secret ending that players can unlock that will shed some more light on it.

Returnal Secret Ending Explained

After completing a series of tasks, the players will be able to get a hold of a car key that they can use to trigger the secret ending of the game. In this Returnal Ending, Selene is faced with a creature sitting in a wheelchair that tries to attack her by grabbing her throat. Selene is able to defeat this creature and then the player’s come across the creature’s name, Theia, also the name of Selene’s mother.

After that Selene is transported to another world where she finds herself standing in the middle of the bridge, in her spacesuit and a car is driving straight towards her. The car swerves to dodge Selena and ends up falling over the bridge and into the water. After that, the perspective is shifted to the driver’s view, swimming out of the wreckage and the players hear Selene calling out the word Helios, the name of her ship and then the credits start rolling.

This ending confuses the players more. It has led many players to believe that Selene is a part of a time paradox, where she is both the cause and the victim of a car crash. Many also believe that through these events Selene has broken herself out of the Time Paradox and is now free to leave. Young Selene is also free to make her own choices.