Hands-On Preview: Celestial Return: A Weird, Dice Rolling, Hard-Sci-Fi Feast

3 weeks ago 20

Published Feb 19, 2026, 9:00 AM EST

Ethan Krieger (He/Him) is an editor at DualShockers that got started in the writing industry by covering professional basketball for a sports network. Despite being a diehard sports fan (mainly formula one, basketball, American football, and golf), video games have always been his #1 interest.

Science-fiction was my first love in terms of genre for pretty much every possible medium. And sure, this originated with some more easily digestible IP, like Star Wars and Star Trek. However, the older I got, and the more I became exposed to the harder, heavier side of sci-fi, the more I began to actively seek out the weird, more challenging subject matter that the genre could provide.

The Demons Told Me To Make This Game Cover Art

This Game Is Disco Elysium With Demons, & It's Fantastic

Demonic possession, time loops, insane choices. Tick, tick, and tick.

While they're not exactly under-the-radar properties by any stretch, things like Blade Runner, Donnie Darko, Annihilation, and even Black Mirror began to reshape what I would come to prefer in my sci-fi experiences; titles that would bend my mind more, and send me into some existential-type spirals for days on end. While I'm not sure what that ultimately says to me, it's my reality.

This began to bleed into video games for me at a certain point too, and the forthcoming Celestial Return, a CRPG that's absolutely dripping with hard-sci-fi ideas, themes, and situations, quickly became an interesting option that I knew I had to go hands-on with when I saw it hit my email.

After spending an hour or so with the game so far... Yeah, it rips. For fans of Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper, Lovecraft, and genuinely interesting presentation and writing, we might have a banger on deck for you. Let's discuss.

Hard-Sci-Fi Fans Unite, and Rejoice

Right off the bat, Celestial Return is immediately striking from a visual presentation standpoint. Drawn in truly spectacular graphic novel-style fashion, and self-described as pulling influence from classics like Berserk, Akira, and Blame!, Celestial Return looks absolutely freaking gorgeous. It's one of the most satisfyingly different and incredible-looking games I've played in a while, and is able to set whatever mood it pleases with just a single panel of artwork placed in front of you.

If you've played similar games before, you know that when you're diving into one of these, you're also in for a nice chunk of reading. Celestial Return takes this one step further and becomes a bit of a meta experience as well, with sections of the game framed as actual books, and even the loading screens sporting text like "Loading the work."

Even better in the landscape of 2026, developers Metaphor Games have already let it be known that Celestial Return is 100% human-made work with no exceptions. As such, what's on display here is genuine, high-level artistry, which is something you absolutely love to see in the modern gaming landscape. Huge shoutout to the team for what they've accomplished with this one.

Narratively, we control Detective Howard, a member of the Paranormal Investigation Division (PID) tasked to deal with mysterious entities simply called "Abstracts." These paranormal beings seem to come in various, unsettling shapes, sizes, and manifestations. After a particularly harrowing, pulse-pumping intro sequence where Howard ends up taking home a unique, seemingly harmless, talking rose Abstract in order to protect it, we then jump three years into the future where Howard is in a bit of a rut.

Drawn in truly spectacular graphic novel-style fashion, and self-described as pulling influence from classics like Berserk, Akira, and Blame!, Celestial Return looks absolutely freaking gorgeous.

Soon, however, a former colleague seeks him out to ask Howard to aid in investigating a string of gnarly suicides around Netherveil, the cyberpunk, dystopian city where Celestial Return takes place. With Rose now at his side, who has the revealed power to be able to speak with the dead (handy when investigating suicides), our story truly kicks off. It's excellent setup for what seems primed to be one of the more memorable sci-fi stories in gaming out there.

Add to all of this the Noir Jazz/Techno/Death Metal score crafted by Berk Şermet, the bassist of Merhum, and you also have a dynamic, thrilling audio feast on your hands. I'm a big Death Metal fan myself in addition to my previously declared love for hard-sci-fi, so it became obvious early on that Celestial Return really was going to speak to me.

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

As the game is revealed to you, you'll learn that Celestial Return operates on a dice-roll system. Much like D&D, Baldur's Gate, and the like, you'll come across frequent skill checks, either random in the overworld or completely story-based, where a roll of the dice determines your successes and failures.

What's awesome, however, is that Celestial Return weaves this mechanic into the narrative itself. Dice are able to be found and looted throughout the game, are used as currency in shops, and given as quest rewards. The game's characters actually acknowledge the dice in-game, which feels incredibly unique and creative instead of literally every other IP where we just have to accept that dice make the rules because... reasons.

Celestial Return then becomes a dance of risk and reward. Different skill checks have different roll requirements to succeed, which are always told to you from the jump. "Easy Peasy" checks might require you only roll a two or above, while "Overlord" checks require a hefty twelve. You can roll up to four dice at a time, but they're also one-time use. It's then up to you to properly risk/ration your dice options in order to make sure you have not only what you need to succeed in the moment, but whenever the next check pops up as well.

This system is awesome, and makes each attempt carry a certain weight of stress as you wait for your roll. Certain dice also give buffs/increased value to your roll, as do several items in the game; some single-use, some perpetual/passive. It all sounds a bit complex on paper, but feels smooth in practice, and brings a certain flavor of both luck and careful planning to Celestial Return that I think works pretty tremendously well.

In yet another awesome, unique twist to the typical formula, Celestial Return also employs "Insights," which are parts of Howard's mind/personality that can be leveled up as you go when you earn enough XP from both main and side objectives. These manifest as talking beings, Virtue, Foolishness, Intelligence, Anger, and Perception, and also are directly given as your options for how to respond to many of the game's choices and story branches.

I found this extremely interesting, as initially, I was typically just choosing the options based on Virtue, Intelligence, and Perception, aiming to be the Good Cop and gaining information for my investigation in honorable ways. Eventually, however (and partially because I poorly rationed my dice inventory a couple of times), I began to experiment with Foolishness and Anger too, only to learn that in some instances, these led to what felt like good outcomes as well.

Ultimately, as you investigate Netherveil, try to untangle the string of suicides, pour over autopsy reports, and begin to unravel a mystery that's seemingly layered beyond belief, it's incredibly rewarding to feel like you have choice and agency in the game's outcomes along the way. Luck is half of it, but it's also on you to appropriately suss out what each and every encounter calls for from Howard's psyche.

A Game that Seems to Have Something to Say

We've touched on the promising story, the top-tier presentation, and the endlessly interesting mechanics, but there's one more area where Celestial Return has consistently impressed me so far. I'm a firm believer that video games don't always need to say something important. In fact, sometimes games try, and it feels so forced and unearned that I wish the attempt wasn't even made. Celestial Return is a game that feels like it has something to say, and so far, I'm here for it.

Though I've only uncovered an hour of what the game will ultimately have in store, I feel like I'm already picking up some things that it's putting down, and it seems like it's going to be good.

It's incredibly rewarding to feel like you have choice and agency in the game's outcomes along the way.

We'll see where it all winds up in the end, but there seems to already be growing themes of corporate greed and overreach, resisting overlords (both seen and unseen), the dangers of unchecked technology, religion, cults, and nihilism. I could go on with the list, but I don't want to start placing too much on the game in terms of what I'm hoping it ultimately delivers on. These are already heavy, challenging topics, and truthfully, if Celestial Return ends up only appropriately hitting half of these things by its conclusion, it'll still be enough.

I should also mention that as bleak and unsettling as the setup of the game feels, there are also moments of levity and humor thrown in that succeed in both feeling natural, and also as ways to help break the tension so it's not just constant doom, gloom, and looming existential crises.

A lot of this is done in fun, meta, fourth-wall-breaking ways, like the game's tutorial text telling you that sometimes you need to "YEET 4 dice and pray to the void." Sure, it's still got an undertone of sarcasm and snark, but these inclusions also effectively break the tension when you need it and remind you at the end of the day that you are, in fact, still playing a video game.

So far, Celestial Return is disturbing. It's dark. It's unapologetic. It's occasionally gross. All of this, however, serves to create a tone where some bigger ideas seem like they can really take root, and the moments where the game gives you a breather are all the more appreciated as a result. I feel like I'm setting a high bar for the full release, but Celestial Return seems like a journey that should be extraordinarily memorable by the end.

Looking Forward to Nerding Out More

If any of this speaks to you, welcome to the club. Celestial Return was partially funded on Kickstarter and eventually more than doubled its donation goal, which means there are plenty of us out there craving this type of heady, heavy, challenging sci-fi experience. Personally, I can't wait for more, and I'm endlessly intrigued after playing one solitary hour to see where everything goes.

I can't stop thinking that if I'm this on board after just 60 minutes, where could Celestial Return ultimately end up in my personal rankings of cool and creative, memorable sci-fi experiences?

While there's no concrete release date for Celestial Return yet, let's cross our fingers that it's not too far out. What I played already felt incredibly polished, which I'm hoping is a decent sign that the game is coming sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, the team at Metaphor Games has been good at posting public updates for interested players, so consider checking out the game on Steam and wishlisting to keep up with future updates. The game's Kickstarter is also still live if you want to jump in for any of the perks that are still being offered.