Celestial Return

Celestial Haven boasts a striking, hyper-stylized fusion of cyberpunk and cosmic horror, but the atmosphere is strangled by a lack of overall polish and cohesion.

Celestial Return is a narrative gamble that blends investigation, cyberpunk, and cosmic horror in a decaying city where every choice matters.

Celestial Return is an ok riff on the melody Disco Elysium perfected.

Celestial Return is a good cyberpunk adventure that doesn’t make it easy for players to fully enjoy it. Main characters Howard and Rose are very interesting, and the cyberpunk city they live in is filled with interesting encounters.

I have had a really good time with Celestial Return so far and look forward to playing more. There is a surprisingly complex narrative and socially relevant too. There are lots of shades of grey and not just because of the dystopian cyberpunk setting. Leaning into Howard’s 5 mental traits was interesting, especially when feeling a little gung-ho. I do wish the dice mechanic was more generous, as it often led to hitting a wall in the story. The graphics and audio were great at setting the tone and scenes, especially as there’s plenty to do in the game. I give Celestial Return the Thumb Culture Gold Award.

I’m a bit disappointed in how it comes together, but there are moments that really work. The setting is cool and has a lot of potential. They have a flair that could really work with some tweaking.

Celestial Return takes the best elements of the Disco-likes, then adds a couple of clever mechanics to carve out an identity of its own.

Celestial Return rewards your curiosity with exceptional world-building, memorable atmosphere, and meaningful choices, but inconsistent balancing and frustrating progression keep an otherwise excellent cyberpunk RPG from fully realizing its remarkable potential.

Celestial Return is a worthy successor for Disco Elysium, and it'll be of particular interest if you like Cyberpunk 2077 as well.

Celestial Return leaves as bitter a taste as the capitalist dystopia it aims to portray. While the art, music, and story are stunning in their own right, they create an immersion-breaking mishmash that, at times, makes no sense. It feels more like the development team wanted to throw everything they found cool into a single title without considering how it would all work together. Nowhere is this clearer than in the gameplay, which, due to design oversights in the addition of more layers, leads to an extreme number of potential softlocks. In shorter games, it is fine, but in a six-hour story-driven RPG, not so much.