Returnal’s new suspend feature can be turned into a full save, players find

A way to make Returnal’s new suspend feature into a reusable save point has been uncovered.

Returnal’s most recent major update introduced a ‘Suspend Cycle’ feature, which lets players pause their cycle and continue it later.

It means players can exit the game and turn off their console fully without losing their progress during a session, something that wasn’t possible before.

In an article on the PlayStation Blog, game director Harry Krueger stressed that the feature was simply a single-use save state, rather than a proper ‘Save Game’ option.

“By suspending the cycle, Returnal will simply create a single use suspend point, and once you resume playing the suspend point is deleted and cannot be used again,” he explained.

However, players have since found a way to manipulate the new feature in order to create an unofficial save point.

Games writer Joseph Yaden said on Sunday that he’d been making use of a simple Returnal Suspend Cycle exploit to help get him through the challenging game.

After suspending his save in-game, he uploaded it to PlayStation’s cloud servers. Upon dying, he found he was able to download the save from the cloud and resume from the point at which the game was suspended.

While Yaden said he hasn’t tested this exploit thoroughly, other have found success with it too, including Kotaku.

Housemarque’s Krueger said the suspend feature was designed to “keep the roguelike spirit and ‘high stakes’ commitment to your run intact, while still providing some quality-of-life convenience for players who like to experience Returnal in shorter bursts”.

The feature can’t be used during boss battles, cinematics, first-person sequences or intense combat.