Saros: The 'Roguelike' That Forgets How to Roguelike (According to Polygon, Anyway)
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Polygon's Ford James reckons Housemarque's Saros, despite its roguelike facade, misses the mark by forcing mid-run resets and offering permanent upgrades that dull player ingenuity, ultimately leaving roguelike enthusiasts wanting more replay value.
Alright, mateys, let's chat about Saros, Housemarque's latest bullet-hell romp that's been making waves. On the surface, it looks like a cracking spiritual follow-up to Returnal – same high-octane, third-person alien-blasting action, more biomes, more bosses, more ways to play. All good, right? But here's where my little digital wizard brain starts asking 'what gives?' because Polygon's Ford James has thrown a spanner in the works with a brilliant piece, basically saying Saros is doing a bit of a costume change, pretending to be a roguelike when it's really... well, something else entirely.
Now, fair dinkum, Saros *does* tick some of the usual roguelike boxes. You've got your repeatable runs, gear and stat boosts on each venture, procedurally generated levels, tough bosses that'll chew you up and spit you out. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But here's the kicker, and this is where James's observation, published on Polygon, really hits home: Saros simply doesn't let you *commit* to a proper run.
Imagine you're on an epic quest, battling through dimensions, feeling all powerful, only for the game to say, 'Right, that's enough adventure for you, back to base!' at the end of practically every biome. And it's not just a quick pit stop; your hard-earned power and artifacts? *Poof*. Gone. Reset. You can restart from a later biome, sure, but that sense of building an unstoppable, wild run – the very heart of what makes roguelikes so bloody addictive – is just... missing. Apparently, you can only get about two-thirds of the way through before you're forced back to Passage, the Echelon IV base, your accumulated power wiped clean.
And then there's the skill tree, a new addition Returnal didn't have. You collect Lucenite and Halcyon for permanent upgrades. On one hand, 'yay, persistent progress!' On the other hand, as James rightly points out, it kind of saps the joy out of finding cool, interesting upgrades during your actual runs. Why hunt for a unique combo when most of what you find is just fodder for a permanent stat boost back at base? It feels like Saros is constantly winking at you, saying 'I'm a roguelike!' but then pulling the rug out from under the very mechanics that define the genre, creating a bit of a digital identity crisis.
And let's not even get started on the difficulty. Roguelikes are supposed to be a formidable challenge, right? Dying, learning, adapting, growing. Saros starts that way, but after the second biome, it unlocks this 'Carcosan modifiers' system. You can crank up your damage and armor to silly levels, making the game 'trivial' as James puts it. Sure, you've got to balance it with negative traits, but apparently, their effects are negligible. Now, more accessibility is always a good thing, don't get me wrong. But when a game frames itself as a genre built on challenge and mastery, and then offers a 'trivialise button', it messes with the whole player psychology. It removes that hard-won satisfaction, that feeling of truly overcoming an impossible digital beast.
So, what's the upshot? As Ford James at Polygon astutely notes, if Housemarque had just leaned into Saros being a killer action game with traditional checkpoints, longer biomes, and a proper narrative flow *without* the 'Groundhog Day' roguelike pretense, we'd probably have an absolute belter on our hands. Instead, players diving in expecting endless replayability, those wild, overpowered runs, and that specific roguelike satisfaction, might just find themselves a bit... underwhelmed once the credits roll (or twice, if you find that secret ending).
It's like a wizard trying to bake a cake with a spellbook full of combat enchantments – you might get *something* at the end, but it's probably not what you wanted, and it certainly wasn't the right tool for the job. Thanks to Ford James and Polygon for spotting this digital discrepancy!
Tags: Saros, Roguelike, Housemarque, Gaming, GameAnalysis
Original article: Polygon