Title: Celestial Return
Developer: Metaphor Games
Publisher: Shoreline Games
Release Date: July 14, 2026
Platform: PC
Reviewed on: PC
Price: $14.99 USD

Welcome to the city of the future! We have everything you could ever want here: tech wizards who can hack systems with their mind, strange creatures that defy scientific understanding, and plenty of propaganda posters telling you how to be a good, compliant citizen. What wonders and horrors await you in this neon-soaked dystopia?

Synopsis

Celestial Return takes place in the decaying futuristic city of Netherveil. In addition to the usual cyberpunk problems of tech-augmented gangsters and greedy corporate overlords, Netherveil is also plagued with paranormal creatures and phenomena called Abstracts.

You play as Howard, an ex-member of the Paranormal Investigation Department (think SCP Foundation but more public and militarized) turned private eye. While investigating a string of mysterious suicides, Howard finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that puts a massive target on his back.

With the help of his acquaintances in the city’s dank underbelly, along with the various voices in his head, Howard must hunt for the truth at the center of the conspiracy while avoiding getting crushed by the shady players involved.

Presentation

Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way: as you can probably guess from the screenshots, yes, Celestial Return is attempting to be cyberpunk Disco Elysium. Narration and dialogue presented in a side window? Check. Character stats personified as voices in your head? Check. Dice-based skill checks? Check.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a mark against the game. On the contrary, I want more games to take inspiration from Disco Elysium. It lets the writing take center stage while still keeping the player on their toes with risky dice rolls and uncertain choices. A narrative-driven game like Celestial Return absolutely shines in this format.

The game’s writing is absolutely one of its strongest points. There were moments that made me laugh out loud, and others that felt like a physical punch to the gut. The main cast has a wonderful found-family kind of chemistry, trading barbs during downtime but defending each other to the death when necessary. Even the inventory flavor text made me crack more than a few smiles.

The audio and visuals are also quite striking. The soundtrack abandons the usual crunchy synths of cyberpunk in favor of a more black metal sound, all sludgy guitars droning over anguished vocals. All the character portraits are appropriately badass, and the art direction has a healthy dose of psychedelia that really strengthens the game’s paranormal setting.

Gameplay

One of the problems with modeling your game after a high-profile title like Disco Elysium is that it inevitably invites comparison, and Celestial Return falls short in several ways. In Disco, every interaction and choice feels meaningful. Whether you’re stumbling your way through communist book club or singing karaoke at the bar, every single moment makes the world feel more real and alive, and gives you a chance to decide what kind of person you want your character to be. Celestial Return struggles to give this level of depth to its world or its mechanics.

Most side quests are little more than a single conversation with an NPC – you learn one or two things about them and then leave, usually with a few extra dice or a useful item. In a game as narrative-heavy as this, I would hope that at least some of these quests would have a little more substance to them, giving Howard the opportunity to forge new relationships or have his worldview challenged. Instead, they all just end with Howard shrugging, saying something to the effect of “well that just happened,” and moving on.

It’s possible that some quests ended prematurely due to bugs. The game’s save system is pretty shaky – loading a save would more often than not give me some kind of audio or visual glitch, or even occasionally put me at a different point in the story. If you choose to check out this game, I highly recommend treating it like an old point-and-click adventure game, saving often and keeping multiple saves to minimize the chance of losing progress.

At first glance, Celestial Return appears to be drawing heavily from Disco Elysium in terms of mechanics too. There’s an equipment screen, skill checks, stat-boosting inventory items, even a leveling system for your various detective traits (AKA Insights). But at its core it’s much closer to a visual novel than an RPG.

The only character customization you have any control over is your Insight leveling, which as far as I could tell only changes the flavor text when the voices in your head chime in. The equipment screen appears to be purely for show, a place to show you the cybernetic augments you automatically gain over the course of the story. And unlike Disco, a failed dice roll usually just means missing a single dialogue option or, in plot-critical moments, immediately re-rolling with a different skill.

The strongest part of Celestial Return’s gameplay is also its most original: the dice economy. Every skill check allows you to roll up to four dice, but the catch is that dice are single-use consumables, with specific buffs and debuffs depending on the type of skill you’re rolling. They’re also used as in-world currency, which is a smart way to give some extra utility to the stat-debuffing dice – just trade them in for items and equipment!

The specific type of dice that you gain is random, but as long as you engage with most of the side content, you’ll always have plenty of reserves. I do wish there was a way to automatically sort your dice, because by the end of the game I was sifting through two to three full inventory pages every time I rolled a skill check.

Final Score (3.5 Out of 5 Stars)

Celestial Return is a game with a lot of ambition and a lot of heart. Some of the mechanics and side content may be underdeveloped, but the main story is well-constructed, exciting, and thought-provoking. If you allow yourself to get immersed in the story that it’s telling, rather than try to make it your own, you’ll be rewarded with a fun ride with plenty of twists and turns.

Do you have a favorite cyberpunk game or story? Suggestions for fans of Disco Elysium? Comment down below or head on over to our Discord and join the conversation!

Featured Image: Shoreline Games

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