One of the first major current-gen exclusives for the PlayStation 5 was Returnal, the bullet-hell rougelike from first-party studio Housemarque that arrived a few months after the launch of the console on April 30, 2021. Now, five years after that launch, Housemarque is back with a spiritual successor in Saros.
Saros isn't a narrative continuation to Returnal, as it features a new cast of characters and a new story for players to dive into, but it is a sequel in terms of how the gameplay evolves from Returnal to Saros. This round-up will go through everything you need to know about this spiritual successor, and be your one-stop hub for all of our news, reviews, interviews, and guides coverage.
Saros releases exclusively for PlayStation 5 consoles on April 30, 2026, a full five years after the initial launch of Returnal, but that's not the earliest you'd be able to start playing it. Between the two editions of Saros that are available, the Standard and Digital Deluxe Edition, players who opt for the Digital Deluxe will be able to start their journey with Saros 48 hours ahead of those who get the Standard Edition, on April 28, 2026.
Here's the difference between the two editions:
At the time of this writing, there's no collector's edition currently available for Saros. No matter which edition you get though, between the Standard and Digital Deluxe, if you pre-ordered the game, you'll also receive the Hand of Shore Armor as an additional cosmetic.
Saros is a fast-paced third-person shooter rougelike where players will have to master what Housemarque calls a "bullet ballet" if they want to reach the game's credits. You're constantly moving and shooting in order to take on waves of enemies in order to reach a boss at the end of each biome, and dying, even if you've made your way to the boss, means having to go back to the beginning to try again.
The story is told through a mixture of cutscenes and written notes and logs you'll find scattered across the world of Carcosa, the "shape-shifting" alien planet that the Soltari organization has sent multiple Echelon teams to go explore. After the first few expeditions resulted in their crew disappearing, protagonist Arjun Devraj and the Echelon IV team are sent to Carcosa to find out what happened to the previous teams and investigate the planet's mysteries.
Any veteran sci-fi fan will recognize that when a story starts with the characters looking into what happened to a crew that went somewhere deep into space only to disappear, bad things are likely to happen. And without spoiling anything, it's fair to say Arjun's story isn't exactly filled with all fun and gags.
Particularly due to the fact that Carcosa is cursed with solar eclipses that drive its inhabitants mad, and that Arjun has to fight through hordes of alien creatures all set to kill him as many times as they have to.
As stated, Saros will feel very similar to those who've played Returnal, who are used to running one ranged weapon at a time with different variants you uncover with each new run, moving through several biomes, each packed with waves of alien enemies and 3D platforming that requires you to be extremely aware of your surroundings at all times.
That core gameplay experience found in Returnal is also present here, though there are new elements to mastering the aforementioned "bullet ballet." You have all the familiar movement abilities found in Returnal, like a grapple hook, a dash, and sprint, and weapons also have two different modes of firing, which can be activated with different pressures placed on the DualSense controller's adaptive triggers. Again, all familiar territory.
As for what's different, Arjun's loadout now includes a shield that can be activated for certain attacks and the ability to parry other attacks. Even the hits you can't parry or absorb with your shield have their own alternative mechanic other than being something for you to bob and weave around.
The attacks are split by colour:
Saros also has more of a focus on permanent upgrades that mean you're on a more linear progression path to 'coming back stronger,' as is the game's mantra. You can fast-travel to any of your unlocked biomes from the beginning so you're not forced to repeat any of the previous biomes, and there's a dedicated skill tree that provides permanent upgrades to Arjun. The more you unlock, the more you raise the ground floor of the difficulty so no matter how high the ceiling climbs, you'll be more equipped to meet it.
The Eclipse is also a new mechanic introduced in Saros. You have to activate it to progress through the story, but doing so corrupts the entire world. Enemies start firing the aforementioned yellow, corrupted attacks, and they are more difficult to take down.
They also impact a choice you've made at the start of each run, which are the Modifiers you've selected. Similar to the 'Heat' scale in Hades, you have to choose gameplay modifiers at the beginning of each run. Some of the ones you'll choose make the game harder, others make it easier, but you're not able to do a run focusing on one or the other. You have to find a balance between them to start a run.
Activating the Eclipse corrupts your Modifiers in positive and negative ways, and you'll have to adapt to them on the fly.
Saros is currently only available on PlayStation 5 consoles, which means you'll need either a base PS5 or a PS5 Pro and a copy of the game to play it. At the time of this writing it is not available on PC, and the most recent reports on whether it will make the jump to PC claim that we won't see it be ported like Returnal was, as PlayStation shifts its strategy around releasing its first-party titles on other platforms.
On PlayStation 5 Pro, the game only has one graphics mode, which targets 60 FPS at a 4K resolution. It runs at an internal resolution near 1440p, and is brought to a 4K output by the latest version of Sony's upscaling solution, PSSR 2. You can check out all of the details on PSSR 2 in Saros here. While the gameplay targets 60 FPS, the cutscenes do jump down to 30 FPS.
On PlayStation 5, it's much of the same in that it targets 60 FPS at a 4K resolution, but without PSSR 2 as the upscaling solution, and at a lower internal resolution near 1224p.
You can check out Wccftech's review of Saros from Kai Tatsumoto here. Find out why he gave it an 8.5/10, and why he left the game "feeling like Saros was more of a revisit to the Returnal framework with the rough edges sanded down."
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