It seems 2026 is the year of Disco Elysium successors, with ZA/UM’s Zero Parades releasing back in May, and the enjoyable Esoteric Ebb at the start of the year. However, if you’ve been looking for a neon-dripping cyberpunk variant with all the capitalist critique and techno-jargon trimmings, Celestial Return might just be it.
Author(ity)
You play as Howard, a grizzled ex-paranormal detective (think cyberpunk John Constantine) who’s been pulled back in to investigate a string of seemingly related suicides. On the case, you’ll be accompanied by an unusual partner: a mysterious talking rose who contributes her wit to your every move.
Celestial Return introduces something fresh to the well-trodden path of cyberpunk. No spoilers, but a cybernetic world rife with paranormal activity is a fantastic hook. With an explosive intro and breakneck pacing, I was never bored. Even the central mystery has its fair share of secrets to uncover.
Concrete Jungle
Your stomping ground is Netherveil, a grimy underbelly you’ll navigate through a diorama. While the main storyline in Celestial Return is rather linear, it’s in the alleyways of Netherveil (and later the Foundation) where you’ll find random encounters and strange side-quests. These were a highlight, and often a pleasantly funny reprieve from the bleak main story.
Celestial Return is more visual novel than traditional RPG. It has some surprising mechanical elements, but mostly you’ll be treated to brilliant character portraits. The art style is definitely a standout. Vivid and unique, it feels ripped straight from a comic book and perfectly establishes the drab neon atmosphere you’d expect from the cyberpunk genre.
Rock’n’Roll
One of Celestial Return’s best features is its dice mechanics. In your standard die-using CRPG, dice are usually out of the player’s hand, often appearing only as a spectral force guiding your fate. In Celestial Return, dice are not only physical objects in your inventory; they are the primary currency. Each time you choose a difficulty check in an encounter, you’ll be spending your scarce dice to clear it. The higher the DC, the more dice required.
This adds weight to every choice you make. Dice, like real money, are not easy to acquire. Each encounter carries the risk that if you waste a check on a bum roll, you might come up short later on. Not all dice are created equal either. While some will synergise with certain stat rolls, others can have catastrophic debuffs.
Personally, I love this. In a dystopian setting where the main character is a downtrodden down-and-out, I want to feel that helpless desperation. This is a wonderfully immersive mechanic that, by extension, deters any attempt to save-scum your way through encounters. There are no easy outs, and that feels perfect for what Celestial Return is trying to achieve.
Hearing Voices
Well, it wouldn’t be a true Disco Elysium successor if your stats didn’t speak to you, now would it? Known as Insights, you can expect each choice to be preceded by a chat with the facets of Howard’s personality.
There are only five Insights in total, excluding one-offs achieved through specific actions, and that limited input is clear. In most encounters, Intelligence and Perception will likely win out over the more chaotic Foolishness and Anger Issues. Combined with the dice mechanics, Celestial Return offers little incentive to be a freak.
Even upgrades for the Insights are oddly few and far between. They feel implemented too late in the story, and the impact is hard to quantify.
The Abyss
Celestial Return occasionally falters. Mostly, these are minor problems that are easy to overlook. Expect some janky metaphors, corny dialogue, and a short music loop that feels misplaced at times. However, if I were to sum up Celestial Return’s biggest issues, it would be balance and fail-states.
For a game so dependent on luck, Celestial Return rarely does anything interesting with failure, despite its inevitability. Many high-tension moments are ruined by a bad roll resulting in an auto end-game screen. This creates a ton of frustrating bottleneck points in the story, forcing you to repeat the same set of rolls until RNG is finally on your side.
Luckily, the devs have been on top of feedback, with Celestial Return receiving balancing patches in the weeks after release. But the lack of interesting story-beats involving failure sets the game back as a whole.
Verdict
Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed my time with Celestial Return. With a short but engaging main story, many random encounters and plenty of choices, it’s an easily replayable experience. I can see myself sinking more hours into exploring the nooks and crannies of Netherveil and turning over every stone.
If you are looking for an unusual addition to the cyberpunk genre and a high-stakes CRPG, Celestial Return is a great fix.
Platforms: Steam
Publishers: Shoreline Games
Developers: Metaphor Games
Played On: PC
Key Provided By: PressEngine
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