Sony featured Returnal at a Game Developers Conference presentation last week, and it may be holding a secret. As the game runs, the output can be seen along the right side of the screen as “Output: SDR (PC)”, confirming the game is running a PC version. The news was first noticed by Digital Foundry’s Alexander Battaglia on Twitter (thanks Alex).
Returnal's presentation from GDC on its VFX and particle work is really cool – but I enjoy the bonus it has of once again confirming the PC version. Debug, readout!
Link to presentation:https://t.co/slu0GIEu12 pic.twitter.com/xz4CUxqqU3— Alexander Battaglia (@Dachsjaeger) September 5, 2022
This is not the first sign we’ve had of an upcoming Returnal PC release. An entry on the Steam Database went live in May for a title named ‘Oregon’, a code name for a game with some interesting tags, including ‘single player’, ‘bullet hell’, ‘roguevania’, ‘female protagonist’ and ‘shooter’. That certainly sounds like Returnal to us.
If that wasn’t convincing enough, there’s also localisation strings listed in the files as reported by VGC, like the undeniably Returnal-related ‘Atropos’ and ‘Tower of Sisyphus’. Finally, it was also featured in the famous Nvidia GeForce Now leaks, which is increasingly proving itself to be a legitimate source of future game reveals.
Sony has been openly embracing the PC as a platform to publish their first party PlayStation titles, even going so far as potentially considering an integration of PlayStation Network as we reported earlier. At this point it seems all but certain that Returnal will eventually end up on PC. Now, we wait.
Will you be playing Returnal on PC? What other PlayStation titles are you waiting for? Don’t be shy, you can say Bloodborne. For more gaming news, keep your eyes on GameLuster.
