Returnal: What Ether Is Used For (& How to Earn More)

Ether is one of the most important items the player can find in Returnal, as it’s one of the few resources that sticks around when the player dies. There are a number of uses for Ether and the player has to decide how to spend it, as it depends on the goal of the current run.

Returnal is a roguelite shooter, with a gimmick involving a time loop/rebirth. The main character is an astronaut who crash lands on a planet and must survive against hordes of hostile alien life forms. Whenever the main character dies, she is reborn at the moment of the crash and everything starts over. At the beginning of a new run, the player has a basic pistol, any story-relevant key items, permanent upgrades, and any Ether they collected on their run. The player loses any weapons they acquired during the previous run, as well as any Artifacts (passive buff items),  Consumables (one-off usable items), and Oblities (a gold-style currency that can be used to buy items).

The fact that Ether is kept between runs makes it the most important currency in the game. The most obvious use for Ether involves the column that appears at the crash site that has a mouth with sharp teeth. This column can be used to unlock new items and make them appear during future runs, but it needs to be fed Ether to create them. The great thing about this column is that it retains any Ether it was fed between runs. If it needs ten Ether to make an item and the player puts in six, then it will still have six in the next runs.

One of the most costly uses for Ether is the Reconstructor. This is a massive chamber that has an alien-shaped hole inside. It costs six Ether to activate, but once it’s used, it will revive the player once per run. This ability only works if the player dies while on the same Biome as the Reconstructor! If the player travels to a new Biome, then they will not be revived if they die there. Reconstructors aren’t as useful as the Astronaut artifact, as those revive the player on the spot, but they’re great for longer runs where the player is trying to get a lay of the land.

Ether can also be converted into Oblities. This can be done at small columns that have a golden glowing orb above them. Usually, this isn’t worth it, as it’s easy to farm Oblities from enemies, but it might be useful if the player wants to stock up on healing items before a boss attempt. The least-useful way to spend Ether is by cleansing chests and items. There are some containers in the game that are surrounded by a thick purple mist. If the player interacts with them, then there is a chance they will be inflicted with a Malfunction, which is a debuff that lasts until the end of the run. It’s possible to cleanse a container’s infection with Ether, but the cost is generally too high and the contents aren’t worth as much as the Ether itself.

Returnal will be released for the PS5 on April 30, 2021.

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2512 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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