Saros review – Another Housemarque masterpiece

It’s been five years since Housemarque shocked us all, delivering Returnal, a game like no other. Honestly, I was sad when I heard that the studio was to turn its back on smaller, more arcade-like experiences; titles such as Alienation, Resogun and Nex Machina are/were my jam. When I got my hands on Returnal, however, it made sense. With Returnal, Housemarque was moving forward, creating something fresh and unique while also keeping fast-paced bullet hell gameplay at its core. And that continues on in its new game, Saros.

Saros both is and isn’t Returnal 2. That is to say that at its core, it feels a lot like Returnal, but thanks to a new setting and a whole new set of features, it manages to distinguish itself as its own entity and stands on its own two feet. The protagonist here is a Soltari enforcer by the name of Arjun Devraj, whose face and voice is provided by Rahul Kohli. And like Seline before him, he’s found himself on another planet, Carcosa, where a perpetual solar eclipse not only changes the landscape, but seemingly also the minds of those who inhabit it.

Desperately trying to find surviving members of previous expeditions to Carcosa, Arjun quickly finds that Carcosa is extremely hostile, filled with a wide variety of creatures that will attack him on sight. And the locales he visits are hostile, too; even if there are no enemies around, chances are you’ll still not be far from some projectiles being shot out or manipulated in a pattern. There are lasers to contend with frequently, too, as well as platforms that spew fire.

For anyone that has played Returnal, this may all sound familiar, and the moment-to-moment gameplay of Saros is similar in many ways. Like Returnal, this is effectively a fast-paced third-person shooter where it’s imperative you stay on the move: stay still for one second when there are enemies around and chances are you’re going to be in for a world of hurt, or perhaps even die.

There are other similarities, too, such as levels having a main path with optional areas branching off which you can explore for additional rewards, weapons having alternate fire modes activated by lightly pulling on the left trigger, and a roguelite structure that finds you being respawned back at a hub when you die.

But as I’ve already said, this isn’t simply Returnal with a new setting and story (though even that would be very much welcome). Instead, building on Returnal, Saros introduces a wide range of new features and mechanics, making it bigger, better, deeper, and even more accessible.

In additional to your weapon’s alternate fire mode, for example, you also have access to a special power weapon, fuelled by a gauge. To use this you have to pull the left trigger all the way down before firing with the right trigger, and it’s highly destructive. You also have access to a shield which you can raise by holding the melee button. Using this to protect yourself from certain projectiles can even charge your power meter, using an enemy’s onslaught to your advantage.

Throw a range of additional upgrades, including the ability to parry projectiles of a certain colour to either negate them or send them back at your attacker, and you have a game that demands more of you than Returnal ever did, and that’s saying something. The enemies here are more numerous, and they send blue, yellow and red projectiles at you in a variety of fiendish patterns. Fail to read them and react appropriately and you won’t get far. Period.

Of course, bosses are a highlight here, and Housemarque has turned them up a notch. If you thought the first boss of Returnal was challenging, Saros will soon have you re-evaluating that thought. The majority of bosses here have three health bars, switching up their attack pattern with each, and right from the outset they demand you to step up your game. You’ll be thankful, then, that on your way to each boss you can power yourself up by collecting artefacts and finding more powerful weapons.

Artefacts in Saros come in three flavours, increasing either your max health, power gauge, or the amount of Lucenite you earn while also offering other perks. By triggering a solar eclipse during each run, which makes things more difficult, these artefacts become corrupted, also bringing penalties to those who pick them up. Sometimes to grow stronger you’ll need to take a risk, then: are you really going to mind doing less damage to enemies if you stand still if it means you can increase your max health and potentially stay in the fight for longer? In any case, you can only hold so many artefacts at once, so you might want to be selective about what you pick up, especially on longer runs.

The artefacts you pick up during a run aren’t the be-all and end-all, though, as Saros has a new permanent upgrade system called the Armour Matrix that allows you to grow in power over time, becoming stronger with every run. Using the Lucenite you’ve collected, as well as a rare resource called Halcyon, you can purchase upgrades when back at the game’s hub, giving you more of a fighting chance of success. You can raise your base health and power levels, for example, as well increase your base proficiency so you can enter the fight with a powerful weapon. You can even unlock a second chance quite early on, allowing you to cheat death.

So, the more you play Saros, the greater chance you have of overcoming the challenges ahead of you. And trust me, even with upgrades, and the fact that you can now fast travel to pretty much any biome you’ve previously reached, Saros remains tough as nails. It’s perhaps the reason why Housemarque has gone one step further and also introduced what it calls Carcosan Modifiers. Once unlocked, these allow you to tweak the difficulty of the game in either direction a little.

By default, you need to balance any additional protection you give yourself with trials – essentially a type of debuff. So, you might get away with reducing the amount of incoming damage you take as long as you’re happy with more Lucenite being taken off you upon death. If you’re really struggling, however, you can remove the limiter, giving yourself lots of protections with no trials, making Saros a game pretty much anyone can play. Alternatively, you can enable loads of trials and no protections to truly test your abilities.

The experience you have with Saros is greatly defined by you, then, but what really matters is the gameplay at the heart of it, which is quite simply sublime. This is the type of game where you can really get in the zone, jumping, dashing and parrying attacks on autopilot while blasting enemies to smithereens and negotiating platforms with grace, a big grin on your face while doing so. The controls are responsive and the mechanics are intuitive, making every minute you spend travelling across Carcosa a treat.

To finish things off, Saros boasts some of the best visuals available on PS5 considering it runs at such a breakneck pace, and I can make no complains with either its soundtrack, which is excellent, or its story which, like its predecessor, perhaps isn’t all that it seems on the face of it. Throw in outstanding DualSense support, and you have another masterpiece from Housemarque, and one of the best games currently available on PS5.