Selene may be at the mercy of Atropos’ wacky temporal time-shenanigans in Returnal, but there are a few tricks to keep her alive long enough to find out why strange things keep happening to her. Possibly the best and most frequent tool available to her is the Reclaimer.

Updated September 12, 2021 by Nowell Montejo: Since its release, Returnal has challenged players to discover all it offers, including an alternate ending for exploring every biome again after getting the first ending, and advanced weapon traits that are only accessible in the later biomes. To help continue your journey across Atropos, we’ve included a few more methods of survival that we’ve discovered since launch.

What Is The Reclaimer In Returnal?

The Reclaimer is a stone slab that you occasionally find in each biome that helps increase Selene’s survivability on Atropos. There are two different versions of the Reclaimer: the standard one, and the Inert Reclaimer. There are also a few other ways to increase her odds of survival, and they are all mentioned below.

Standard Reclaimer

The standard Reclaimer has an interesting function that has major risk/reward to it. Using the Reclaimer will put Selene to sleep for a moment. When she wakes up, she receives a random Artifact. Unfortunately, this comes at a great cost, because using the device takes a large amount of Integrity away.

Inert Reclaimer

The Inert Reclaimer works in the opposite fashion than the standard Reclaimer. Rather than taking away a large amount of Integrity, it fully heals you instead. It does not give you an artifact upon using it, however. Treat this as a free healing station and take advantage of it any time you see it!

Selene’s Ship

Selene’s crashed ship acts as its own version of the Reclaimer. During any run in the Overgrown Ruins or Echoing Ruins, you can return to your ship and sleep in your bed to recover any lost integrity, just like the Inert Reclaimer. It is important to know, however, that this only works in the two respawning biomes, since Selene’s ship obviously doesn’t travel with her when she teleports to new biomes.

Other Methods Of Survival

There are a few other ways that you can extend your time in a given run. Some of these can be found along the main path, but more often than not, it will require a little more exploration on your part, such as traveling through the blue triangle doorways to find hidden rooms.

  • Collecting three Silphium Resins will extend Selene’s Integrity meter Reconstructors found on the map will allow Selene to respawn in the room she found it, at the cost of six Ether The Astronaut Figurine artifact gives Selene an instant, one-time extra life upon death The Child’s Watch is another artifact that gives Selene an extra life when she dies Various consumables have healing properties, including leeching life upon dealing damage, or the plain “health potion” variety If you have an abundance of Ether (you can only hold a max of 30), use it to cleanse Malignant Silphium, which will refill some of your lost integrity without obtaining a malfunction