Saros is the latest game from Finnish developer Housemarque. With the likes of Returnal (2021), Housemarque made a name for itself by bringing bullet hell shoot-’em-ups into the third dimension. They’re also known for adding narrative, character, and worldbuilding to a genre that is typically all about gameplay.
Saros is a story about the crew of Echelon IV, the fourth expedition to be sent to the distant planet of Carcosa by the megacorporation Soltari. The previous three Echelon colony missions all stopped communicating, and so the fourth was sent to work out what went wrong. You play as Arjun Devraj (Rahul Kohli), a grizzled and brooding Soltari enforcer. Facing off against alien monsters, hallucinations, and a troubled past, you must fight your way across Carcosa and uncover the mysteries of the previous Echelon missions.
A third-person shooter roguelike, Saros involves zipping your way across several biomes, each culminating in a boss fight. It’s only upon defeating said boss that you can progress to the next biome. Upon successfully completing a run, or dying, you will return to your home base at The Passage. It’s here that you can talk to a handful of other survivors, listen to some audio logs, and unlock upgrades.
Essentially marketed and released as a PS5 launch title, I wanted to like Housemarque’s previous game, Returnal. Unfortunately, I bounced off it pretty hard after finding the loop unrewarding. I’m not opposed to a challenge, but I found it way too repetitive and frustrating; the sense of progression was not enough to keep me coming back for another run.
Thankfully, Saros has fixed this problem. Having a cast of characters with new dialogue or audio/text logs to find and a constant stream of permanent upgrades to unlock meant that any time I was struggling to reach the end of a new biome or to overcome a particularly difficult boss, I was happy to keep grinding away. I found the difficulty curve quite reassuring in this way. Whenever I died, I knew I simply had to get stronger, rather than it being a question of skill or unfair balancing.
You eventually unlock the ability to activate modifiers to make your experience easier or harder. These will be things like removing the cooldown on your shield or allowing Arjun to deal or take more damage. Each of these has a cost, although you can go into the accessibility settings and remove this limit, meaning you can stack as many of the positive modifiers as you like. This will certainly make the game a bit of a joke to run through, but it’s nice to have the option there if you’re simply not having fun banging your head against the wall.
Additionally, the game world of Saros is far more vibrant and visually arresting than Returnal. The orange colour palette of Saros will be familiar to anyone who has seen one of its trailers, but the environment design, featuring enormous alien walled cities and impossible landscapes towering in the distance, was an incentive to push on in and of itself.
The shooting is super fun. There’s a list of different weapon archetypes, from handguns to shotguns to alien crossbows and chakram launchers. Even the most familiar-feeling weapons have a unique spin on them thanks to their alternative fire modes. There are also power weapons which charge up over time and allow you to unleash huge blasts of energy or spray swarms of smaller projectiles that damage enemies over time.
Thanks to his sci-fi future suit, Arjun can zip around at great speed, and there are a number of mobility upgrades to acquire over the course of his journey. By combining fluid movement with chunky, responsive shooting, Saros lets you sink into a great rhythm. Everything feels great, and as I got more and more powerful, I would often find myself entering a flow state of utter destruction. Moving from area to area, dodging a million different glowing blue, red, and yellow orbs and unleashing hell.
Rounding out the spectacular combat is the sound and visuals. Running at a smooth 60 fps on PS5 Pro, the sheer number of enemies, projectiles, and particle effects on screen at any one time is dazzling. The sound of Carcosan monsters screeching and droning, mixing with the rhythmic thudding of Arjun’s arsenal and the almost digital-sounding pings of bullets hitting your shields, all add to a chaotic cacophony of sound that’s a joy to behold.
The story of Arjun himself, his quest to locate and reconnect with a woman from his past, was not something that gripped me. It’s very familiar, and the little crumbs you get every now and then between runs aren’t enough to create a well-rounded character or narrative. On the other hand, the worldbuilding of both Carcosa and the distant future Earth Arjun has come from, and what happened to the previous Echelon expeditions did provide enough of a hook. Admittedly this stuff is also familiar, echoing the likes of Sunshine or Event Horizon, but it was enough to make me curious about what the next biome might have in store.
Ultimately, I found a lot to love about Saros. It features extremely solid combat, intuitive and fluid movement, and a challenging loop set against the fascinating cosmic horror backdrop that is Carcosa. Some of the narrative elements, specifically those of Arjun’s personal journey and the “crew goes insane in space” tropes, may be a little lacking, but it’s not enough of a problem to distract from a super fun and rewarding core. Whether you’re a longstanding Housemarque fan or have yet to break into their distinct style of shooter, Saros is a blast.
Rating: 8/10
Saros was reviewed on PS5 Pro with a code provided by Sony.