"Returnal" was released last week to great acclaim. One of the few PS5 exclusives since the console's launch, the roguelike game, which packs Housemarque's signature bullet-hell combat into a sci-fi shooter, has been praised by fans who enjoy demanding gameplay.

Tinged with the mystery of why Selene is stuck in a cycle of live, die, repeat, "Returnal" hits the sweet spot of solid, fun gameplay that enlivens a fairly loose narrative shrouded in mystery and filled with horror. and keep running through each cycle until you reach the boss, the game challenges you to keep going.

When you die, your progress is reset, including the procedurally generated map. As anyone familiar with the roguelike formula knows, Housemarque's questionable choice regarding game saves has spurred a larger conversation in the realm of social media: should Returnal feature an autosave? The answer is an unequivocal "yes."

For those who have not seen the drama of Returnal, the cycle resets when you die. If you interrupt the game and turn off the console, the cycle resets. If you switch to another game, the cycle resets. If you interrupt the game and leave the console turned on or in hibernation mode, your progress is safe. Of course, the cycle will reset unless an update is implemented. See issue.

Unless you leave the console in rest mode and only Returnal the game you are actively playing on the PS5 (at least during the middle of the cycle), it is inevitable that your progress will be reset.

Housemarque just emphasized that they are creating a funny situation by PSA'ing players on how to maintain progress. The secret is: Aside from not turning off the console or closing the game, one can go into the PS5 system settings and disable automatic updates for all applications on the console. The absolute audacity of the company to think to casually implement such a system-wide inconvenience because a game update would erase a player's progress is truly astounding.

This kind of thinking also denigrates the multitude of gamers who cannot afford to dictate who is playing what on their gaming consoles and when. Alternatively, some households prohibit hibernation modes on appliances due to power consumption issues.

What appears to be a glaring blunder has morphed into a distorted meta-game of who can inconvenience themselves and those around them the longest. One's skill as a "real gamer" is no longer determined by in-game proficiency as it was in the "Soul" series. We have entered a fresh hell where it is up to us to decide who can keep the game interrupted the longest, keep the console turned off, and avoid enjoying titles other than Housemarque's shooters.

Adding an autosave or save and quit option would nip all these problems in the bud without taking away from the core of the gameplay or the developer's vision. Such basic functionality is found in games such as Kingdom Come:.

There should be no situation where a developer's creative control over a game extends beyond the product they are offering to what is happening in my living room. For the percentage of you who are crowing that this is a valid form of game design, consider how absolutely ridiculous what you are saying is.

If you think that developers should indulge in being so pompous with their games that they infringe on their customers' lifestyles and encroach into areas that their player base doesn't necessarily have control over, then you have a big problem.

Game developer Rami Ismail summed up the situation on Twitter, saying that since there is no autosave, the only options are "to 'only play returnals' or 'not play returnals. This means that a huge number of gamers are similarly "waiting for a pause in the game or waiting for the save feature."

Ultimately, the lack of autosave is a huge barrier to entry that serves no purpose other than to be used as a badge of honor that there are no other games to play and no one to share the console with. Congratulations.

Whether this is a reflection of skill or how it ties in with Housemarque's creative vision is still being rumored on Twitter. But this is likely due to a younger demographic that believes that "loyalty" to console manufacturers and game developers actually exists; for those of us who have purchased a PS5, it is incomprehensible that a game could be rendered unplayable in this manner.

"Returning" is a truly great game and passionately conveys what the next generation consoles have to offer. However, the conceit that the game mechanics should be this excessive is problematic and Housemarque should address it in the next update.