Returnal
- Developer
- Housemarque
- Publisher
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Released
- 30 April 2021
- Age rating
- PEGI 16
- UK price
- £49.99
Platforms: PC
Genres: shooter
Returnal is a 2021 roguelike third-person shooter video game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut who lands on the planet Atropos in search of the mysterious "White Shadow" signal and finds herself trapped in a time loop. After crash-landing on a shape-shifting alien planet, Selene finds herself fighting tooth and nail for survival. Every time she’s defeated, the player is forced to restart the journey.
Best gaming PC for Returnal in 2026
Full buyers guide →Below are the four PC tiers we'd actually recommend for Returnal today. These are our 2026 hardware picks, not the dated publisher minimums you'll find on Steam.
Budget
£7991080p · 60fps
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 5 7600
- GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB
- RAM
- 16 GB
- Storage
- 1TB NVMe SSD
Mid-tier
£1,2991440p · 60fps
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700
- GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super 12GB
- RAM
- 32 GB
- Storage
- 2TB NVMe SSD
High-end
£1,7991440p · 144fps
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB
- RAM
- 32 GB
- Storage
- 2TB NVMe SSD
Enthusiast
£3,4994K · 60fps
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
- GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 32GB
- RAM
- 64 GB
- Storage
- 4TB NVMe SSD
Official system requirements
These are the minimum and recommended specs as published by Sony Interactive Entertainment on Steam. They tend to be conservative — usually "what ran the game at 1080p when it shipped". For what you should actually buy in 2026, see the tier cards above.
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903) | Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903) |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz) | Intel i7-8700 (6 core 3.7 GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core 3.7 GHz) |
| RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB) | NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super (8 GB) AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB) |
| Storage | 60 GB | 60 GB |
| DirectX | — | — |
Verified 18 May 2026 against the Steam store page.
Can your PC run Returnal?
If your CPU is roughly equivalent to Intel i7-8700 (6 core 3.7 GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core 3.7 GHz) and your GPU is at or above NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super (8 GB) AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB), you'll hit recommended settings at 1080p/60. For 1440p or higher, see the tier picks above.