The newest Returnal update is causing players to lose their progress, prompting developers Housemarque to roll it back and warn players not to open the game until the problem is fixed.
In a Tweet, they addressed complaints that Returnal Update 1.3.3 was corrupting player save files, and said they would be rolling back players game versions to 1.3.1.
“Patch 1.3.3 has been pulled and we are reverting back to 1.3.1 until it’s fixed. We are fixing the issue now and a new patch will be published in a few hours All users affected by the 1.3.3 need to re-download the game. Our sincerest apologies”, the tweet reads.
Simply having the update installed if you left your console in standby mode doesn’t automatically mean you’ve lost it, however. Housemarque also explained how to tell if you’ve been affected by the new bug.
Q: How do we know we are affected?
A: You'll get the CE-100028-1 error popup...Just wait for the next patch coming soon if you're not sure.
— Housemarque (@Housemarque) May 5, 2021
Housemarque has been under criticism for some of their design choices with Returnal, most notably the inability to save your progress between runs. Fans have been asking for this feature since day 1 as the game’s later portions can have extremely long runs, to which Housemarque has previously responded that they had “nothing to announce” with regards to it.
Some fans have taken to Twitter to call out how bizarre Returnal’s issues all being save-related are, such as streamer Patrick “PatStaresAt” Boivin.
Returnal not having any ability to manually save or quit, plus the game auto-updating and turning the game off (and killing your run) to give you a patch that would completely destroy your one save is the kind of 1-2-3 punch that could have been so easily avoided.
— Pat Stares At (@PatStaresAt) May 5, 2021