Returnal: How to Complete Biome Surveys & Earn the Trophies

If you’ve been looking through Returnal’s trophy list, you might have noticed a number of trophies require you to finish a certain biome’s survey. The problem is, the game never actually tells you what counts towards these surveys, and so these trophies can seem more difficult to achieve than they realistically should. In this guide, we’ll explain how to complete Returnal biome surveys so you can earn all six trophies on offer.

What Are Biome Surveys?

Biome Surveys are essentially side objectives that you can choose whether to complete or not. Completing each of the six biome surveys will unlock a trophy, and we’ve got a complete list below:

• Past the Ruins: Finish Overgrown Ruins Survey
• Ascending the Mountain: Finish Crimson Wastes Survey
• Through the Forgotten City: Finish Derelict Citadel Survey
• Echoes of the Past: Finish Echoing Ruins Survey
• Frozen in Time: Finish Fractured Wastes Survey
• Submerged in Memories: Finish Abyssal Scar Survey

How to Complete Biome Surveys in Returnal

To complete a Biome Survey, you must find all the Scout Logs, Xenoglyph Ciphers and Xeno-Archives in a biome.

These are all optional collectible items that provide additional story context and lore to Selene’s adventure across Atropos. The problem is, due to the procedurally-generated nature of Returnal’s planet, there are no specific locations you can be directed to to find each of these collectibles.

Scout Logs are arguably the most difficult, as there’s no guarantee that all the logs in a biome will spawn in during a single run. As such, you’ll need to thoroughly explore biomes multiple times in the hope that you can grab them all in as few runs as possible. You’ll find Scout Logs on dead corpses, and they’re marked on your minimap with a little signal-style icon, so be sure to keep an eye out for these.

Xenoglyph Ciphers are the red alien symbols you’ll find on walls and other structures as you progress through the game. You need to find all of these in order to translate Xenoglyphs, which when interacted with, provide brief sentences outlining the background of Atropos and its inhabitants.

Finally Xeno-Archives are the large rooms that have hologram-style images depicting events that took place on the planet. To tick these off your list for Returnal Biome Surveys, you need to walk over to each of the clouds of particles until they turn into static images depicting the alien race. Press Triangle and Selene will then make a comment about what’s being depicted in the Xeno-Archive.

There you have all you need to know on completing Biome Surveys in Returnal. Head over to our wiki for more tips and tricks, or see more of our coverage on the game below.