Saros – Review
As a rule, I was not a fan of roguelikes and bullet-hells shooters, well…. I wasn’t until I played Housmarques Returnal back in 2021. They opened my eyes to what great fun they can be. That said nobody else has captured that lightning in a bottle for me since though. Now the game development geniuses from Finland are back with another roguelike shooter, Saros – exclusively on PS5.
The first thing to get out of the way is to explain what Saros is. Well, it’s Returnal. It feels, looks and operates almost exactly the same. But with a new lick of paint, a bit more story and some game system changes to make progression feel a bit more linear and approachable.
This time round, our new hero Devraj, is part of a corporate team sent to investigate the “going dark” of multiple mining teams sent by Soltari Ltd to planet Carcosa. Unlike Returnal, there is now a base camp where team mates add to the story between each run, and out in the world, holograms slowly build a narrative within the mystery of this planet.
Run, Die, Repeat – is still at the core of Housemarques design philosophy.
How it shakes out is this. Wake up in base camp, talk to a few teammates. Spend your “resources” earned in the previous run to level up life, energy, weapon level drops etc… and head out for another run. Navigate the levels to get to a boss fight, probably die…and thanks to the power of this weird sun, do it again! Each time being a bit stronger.
Similarly to Returnal, during a run the RNG for new guns and upgrades are key to success. A level to two higher can make all the difference. That said, the RNG felt very measured in Saros, and I always seemed to be getting a veeerrrrry gradual uplift in quality. Nothing that felt like a boon or good luck…
This felt very different to Returnal, which on some runs the RNG gods would smile, and you would get an array of weapons and mods that just sync’d and facilitated a cacophony of controlled chaos and importantly, progress. It was always pleasing to the eye and the dopamine receptors.
The enemies, the movement and U.I are new, but VERY familiar to a Returnal player. Not a 1:1 copy and paste from Returnal, but not far away. Still, if the sauce is good, why force a small team like Housemarque to go changing basic stuff for the sake of it.
Saros has a far more measured and linear approach to progression than Returnal. And this is where the main cracks start to show for me. Where Returnal was chaotic, unique, and each run felt wildly new. Saros has lost a bit of its magic to make it more predictable. Sure Returnal felt a tad unfair at times, but it also gave you moments of being over-powered, which felt great! Saros feels very purposeful, predictable and linear in the power progression. Which makes it less exciting and more overtly grindy.
An example of this is the opening few hours. Where the same level has to be run to face the mid level boss, then get to a final boss. The artificial damage and health barrier means there is no way I could progress. So I had to grind that same 20min level, over and over to collect the “resource”, to level up, to be able to survive long enough to make it to the boss. Then once strong enough to fight the boss. I had to continue to run that 20min level to get to the boss again, to learn its patterns to just win that fight. Basically, the fun got squeezed out.
Where Returnal was a chaotic mix of level tiles, worlds and mystery. What mystery I initially had in Saros, soon vanished as it all became so familiar due to the repetition. I grew to hate the thought of having to start the same 15-20min run with basically the same level design….over and over.
So that’s where Saros ultimately landed for me. We adore Housemarque here at the Cottage — Returnal and Alienation are absolute standouts. And Saros is a beautifully crafted game, with a more approachable, linear take on the Returnal formula. But somewhere in the process, a little bit of that unmistakable Housemarque magic slipped through the cracks
Saros is still a great game that looks amazing on PS5, and for Roguelike fans it is still a must buy.
