Saros: Did Housemarque Accidentally Cast a 'God Mode' Spell on Its Returnal Successor?
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Saros is a stunning spiritual successor to Returnal that delivers incredible PS5 spectacle but loses its edge by making its meta-progression and difficulty modifiers far too forgiving.
Right, so I’ve been tinkering with this latest update from the Housemarque labs all morning, and bloody hell, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. You remember Returnal, don’t you? That gloriously punishing, bullet-hell nightmare that felt like being trapped in a blender with a very angry alien? Well, Housemarque is back with Saros, and it feels like they’ve looked at everyone who complained about the difficulty and decided to cast a massive, area-of-effect 'easy' spell over the whole thing.
Now, don't get me wrong—I’m all for making games more approachable. I’ve accidentally blown myself up in enough digital dungeons to appreciate a helping hand. But there’s a fine line between a helping hand and a golden chariot that carries you to the finish line while you’re still putting your boots on. Saros, it seems, might have overcorrected so hard it’s ended up on a different planet entirely. And I mean that literally, because we’re headed to Carcosa.
In Saros, we step into the dusty boots of Arjun Devraj, played by the legend Rahul Kohli. Side note: can we just give Kohli a trophy for being in literally everything we love lately? He’s great here as a grizzled enforcer for a massive tech corp called Soltari. They’re trying to colonize Carcosa for its 'Lucenite'—which is basically space-gold that everyone wants to get their hands on. But the planet is a bit of a moody bugger; it’s plagued by eclipses that drive the local wildlife (and the robots) absolutely mental.
Structurally, Saros is a spiritual successor to Returnal in everything but name. It’s got that same frenetic, third-person movement, the walls of glowing energy balls that look like a deadly disco, and that cryptic sci-fi vibe where everything is probably a metaphor for someone’s inner demons. It even uses the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers for alternate firing modes—half-pull for a regular shot, full-pull for the big guns. It’s a trick Housemarque mastered years ago, and honestly, they’re still the only wizards who seem to know how to use the PS5’s wand properly.
But here’s where my skeptical wizard sensors start twitching. Returnal worked because the difficulty was the point. Selene was trapped in a loop of trauma, and her struggle was our struggle. Every inch of progress was earned with blood, sweat, and a lot of swearing. Saros, however, seems to have traded that hard-earned growth for a massive, bloated skill tree.
Every time you bite the dust in Saros, you come back with stacks of Lucenite. You spend this on permanent upgrades that aren't just 'a little bit of extra health.' We’re talking permanent revives, explosive melee attacks, and massive defense boosts. In Returnal, finding a revive was like finding a twenty-pound note in an old pair of jeans—a rare, joyous miracle. In Saros, it’s a basic human right you buy at the start of the game.
I reckon Housemarque was so worried about players bouncing off the difficulty that they’ve turned the game into a bit of a numbers game. Early on, you might get walloped by a boss, but after one or two runs, you’ve bought enough upgrades that you’re basically a walking tank. The 'roguelike' elements—those random artifacts and weapons you find during a run—start to feel a bit redundant when your base stats are already through the roof. Why care about a 5% damage boost artifact when you’ve already upgraded your sword to hit like a tactical nuke?
It’s a bit of a shame, because the actual combat is brilliant. It’s tactile, fast, and visually spectacular. If you’re lucky enough to be playing on a PS5 Pro, the particle effects are enough to make your retinas weep with joy. The biomes of Carcosa—from dehydrated plains to underground factories—look stunning. But without that looming threat of failure, the 'loop' starts to feel more like a linear stroll.
There’s also this new system called Carcosan Modifiers. On paper, it’s clever: you pick a positive trait but have to balance it with a negative one. But in practice? It’s about as balanced as a one-legged stool. I found myself picking 'negative' traits that barely affected me—like banking less currency—in exchange for massive power boosts. By the halfway point, I wasn't playing a roguelike anymore; I was playing a power fantasy. I blazed through the last five biomes without dying once. Total playtime? About ten hours. For a game built on the idea of an 'endless cycle,' that feels a bit... short, doesn't it?
And what about the human story? Rahul Kohli does some heavy lifting here, bringing a real sense of simmering rage and anxiety to Devraj. The game tries to use Hindu symbolism and concepts of saṃsāra to justify its death-and-rebirth cycle, which I genuinely love. It’s clever, thematic, and way more interesting than standard 'alien space magic.' But because the gameplay becomes so easy so quickly, the narrative weight of Devraj’s 'struggle' feels a bit hollow. How can he be on the brink of madness when he’s basically an invincible god clearing rooms in thirty seconds?
It feels like Housemarque tried to build a bridge for the casual crowd but accidentally built a ten-lane motorway. I’m all for accessibility, but when you strip away the tension of a roguelike, you’re left with a very pretty, very short shooter that lacks the soul of its predecessor. It’s like casting a spell to fix a leaky roof and accidentally turning your whole house into solid gold—it looks amazing, but it’s a bit hard to live in.
If you’re looking for a gorgeous PS5 showpiece that won’t make you want to throw your controller through the window, Saros is going to be your jam. It’s a visual feast and the shooting feels incredible. But if you were hoping for that deep, rewarding mastery that made Returnal a modern classic, you might find this particular cycle a bit too easy to break.
I’m still cautiously optimistic for what Housemarque does next—they’re clearly the masters of the 'feel' of a game. I just hope next time they trust us to handle a bit more of the heat. After all, what’s a journey through hell if you’ve got an air-conditioned limo to take you there?
Tags: Housemarque, Saros, PS5 Pro, Roguelike, Gaming Review
Original article: Polygon