Returnal is a game that focuses on guilt, depression and the psychological toll of childhood trauma. Throughout Returnals chaotic story delivery we can piece together a rather upsetting story, a story about a child who went through something traumatic and held full responsibility for the incident never gaining true acceptance for the events that guided their fate. There's a lot of symbolism throughout the game so I won’t cover it all, just what I feel is most relevant to explaining the events that transpired and what they could possibly mean.

To begin with we have to understand that Theia is the driver of the car and Selene is the child in the back seat. We know this because the news report that plays on the TV states that Theia was driving, also Selene has Heterochromia and when we watch the crash that brief moment the driver looks in the rear view mirror we see that they have two brown eyes in my mind this solidifies the theory and confirms that Theia is indeed the driver.

In the accident Theia suffers severe spinal damage as stated in the news report but Selene is totally unharmed, it’s safe to assume that Selene then grew up caring for her mother as we later learn that her mother was wheelchair bound after the accident. This lead to Selene having to give up on her dreams of becoming an astronaut and developing severe depression in which she’s medicated for, which is confirmed in a house sequence when she picks up her prescription tablets and says she hasn’t needed them for a while confirming that not only was she on medication but she no longer is, hinting towards the possibility that she might have had a relapse in her mental state and possibley even tried or succeeded in committing suicide.

For this next part I feel it’s important for me to explain some of the Greek mythology references and symbolism: “in Greek mythology Atrapos is known as the oldest of three fates also known as the “the inflexible one”

It was Atrapos who chose the manner of death and ended the life of mortals by cutting their threads” - Wikipedia

“In Greek mythology, Selene (/sɪˈliːniː/; Ancient Greek: Σελήνη [selɛ̌ːnɛː] "Moon") is the goddess of the Moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and sister of the sun god Helios and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens.” - Wikipedia

I believe the tentacles that keep dragging Selene back down represent the guilt dragging her back down into a state of constant depression and every time she starts to forget and move on they’re back, pulling her back down to Atrapos, her fate, her demise/suicide.

Each death could also represent different paths she’s tried to take to forget and move on but with each attempt she is met with failure.

I think it’s also possible that Theia was pregnant with Selenes brother Helios that is why I’m the beginning of the game when you first crash Selene says “I’ve crashed on Atrapos I’ve survived but Helios has not” meaning Selene has a fate but Helios does not because his threads have been cut.

At the end of act 1 we are met with a cutscene that shows Selene being rescued from Atrapos and living the rest of her life, getting engaged and married, shown by the ring on her finger changing from silver to gold and her hands aging as the scene progresses. This could represent what her life could have been like if she had learned to accept the past and deal with her trauma, in the same scene we can also notice that Selene returns to the site of the accident and is seen staring at the bridge and the lake.

I like to assume that the astronaut we see throughout the story is infact the representation of Slenes future that she lost by having to care for her mother, in a house scene we read a letter from Astra stating that the applicant wasn’t successful, this is what I believe to be the trigger for Selenes relapse, she couldn’t handle the news and ultimately lead her to committing suicide landing her on Atrapos, her fate.

In one of the final scenes we see Theia in the form of an alien residing in a wheelchair, Selene shouts at her asking her to leave her alone, Theia lands on the ground looking helpless.

I think this might hint towards her mother being abusive and blaming her for the accident or how Selene felt she was held back and dragged down by her mother needing her. The game comes to its final conclusion after we witness Selene open her eyes and notice she was the person on the road that caused Theia to swerve off of the road, she was the white shadow.

The whole time Selene truly believed she was the cause of the accident.

To me the whole story is just an intricately woven tapestry of guilt, self loathing, grief and survivor guilt. This is all totally up for interpretation but that’s what I personally took away from the story. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Bonus

The core philosophy of Returnals gameplay loop is very nihilistic, it reinforces after every death that nothing really matters. The progression you make has very little impact on the world around you and even after fighting time and time again the world and your progression in it has stayed the same, this represents today’s 9-5 lifestyle and work routine. We wake up to fight through the day, accomplish what we can and do the same the next day while only making small amounts of progress in terms of the goals we wish to achieve. A seemingly endless loop that most of us fall unknowingly into because we are sociologically conditioned to believe that this is the natural order of progression for us and that is the very same core principle for Returnal. Until you break out of that thought process you won’t make any true progress, however once you have your runs get better and better because you’re no longer trying to make it to the next run you’re now trying to get the most out of that run, willing to risk it all in hopes of success.

Even more so when you finally finish what you believe to be the end of the game, the penultimate boss you find out there’s more. You have to relive everything all over again. There was no end to the loop, the loop was never a choice. Only the finite decisions we make, the small choices throughout each run or in our day to day lives are how we progress and reach our goals but in the loop will always start over.

Returnal is an existential nihilist's dream game and I urge people to play it. I believe there is an important message in the games core mechanics that could easily be overlooked.

Author: Gabriel Sewell