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Housemarque has announced that the free Returnal: Ascension DLC is now available to download on PlayStation 5.
If you’ve not kept up, the free expansion adds a couple of major new features to the excellent 2021 shooter. They include an endless survival mode known as Tower of Sisyphus, and adds online co-op play to the main campaign. It’s the latter that’s the focus of a new PlayStation Blog post published to mark the DLC’s release.
When they next start the game. players will find a new Chronosis sphere in the Crash Site. Stepping into this portal (assuming you have PlayStation Plus) will cause another ASTRA scout to enter your game. While the world progress is kept to the host, the guest player can increase their Scout Rank, Weapon Traits and Databank.
The team at Housemarque reveal that adding the co-op mode introduced a lot of new challenges. First off, the Chronosphere used to be found in multiple places through the levels. However, the team soon found that testers would summon a co-op friend exclusively to take on bosses.
Housemarque also note in the blog that they wanted to keep Returnal’s challenge, which led to some interesting mechanics. Previously, when one player was downed, the other had to sacrifice some of their health to revive them. However, this turned out to be a bit too harsh, leaving both players on a sliver of health and immediately finished in the next encounter.
In addition to the blogpost, Housemarque have put out a new roundtable discussion video talking about their experiences on the expansion. You can check that out for yourself down below. Returnal: Ascension is available now for Returnal exclusively on the PlayStation 5.
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