New Returnal Patch Is A Major Problem

Housemarque's "Returnal" has finally scuttled from the spooky corners of outer space and on to PS5s everywhere — and gamers are having a (literal) blast. While the roguelite action title has divided some players due to its punishingly long runs and its unorthodox save system (or lack thereof), the majority of critics have heaped praise on Selene's creepy, death-filled adventure through Atropos. Yes, in "Returnal," you die — a lot. But everybody's favorite new Samus Aran analogue, Selene, isn't the only one croaking — your save data might be too. 

As it turns out, the latest "Returnal" patch — 1.3.3, released on May 5 — has been corrupting saves, killing players' progress, and generally wreaking havoc on players' data.

Intended to fix issues related to trophies not unlocking following certain gameplay conditions (among other stability hiccups), patch 1.3.3 instead began to corrupt save files and even lock some players out of their games entirely. When booting up their game following installation of the patch, players reported getting a "CE-100028-1" error code which, strangely enough, indicates that "there is not enough free space on the SSD," according to a PlayStation.com support listing.

Thankfully, Housemarque quickly noticed the damage that patch 1.3.3 was causing to players' "Returnal" data and addressed the issue in a series of tweets. Housemarque tweeted, "Patch 1.3.3 has been pulled and we are reverting back to 1.3.1 until it's fixed," adding that the team was "fixing the issue" and releasing a new patch in the coming hours. Housemarque also apologized, telling "Returnal" players that they would need to uninstall and then reinstall the game for the patch reversion to take effect.

Fan response to Housemarque's relatively quick response has been mixed. While a number of Twitter users celebrated the hard work that Housemarque was putting into fixing "Returnal," others lamented that they'd lost "tens of hours of their time and energy." Still, some called the game "broken," and one user claimed that they put "Returnal" on their backlog until Housemarque both "get [their] patches sorted to stop any freezes ... [and] Get a Save and Continue so I can pause my run without using quick resume."

Yes — if it wasn't immediately clear, players are dying for a better save system.

Hopefully, Housemarque is able to hammer out a fix sooner rather than later. Despite a vocal minority of players lambasting the "Returnal" devs for the game-breaking patch 1.3.3 — and for certain gameplay mechanics — "Returnal" has proven to be a critical darling and a worthy representative of what the PlayStation 5 can really do.