Saros is the next shooter from the Returnal developers, and it wants to be less punishing

Returnal studio Housemarque sound like they’re aiming to put more emphasis on the lite part of the roguelite formula with Saros, their next loop ’em up space shooter arriving exclusive to PlayStation 5 next year and likely on PC sometime after that, if past time loops are anything to go on.

You’ll be exploring a lost space colony as Arjun Devraj, a “Soltari Enforcer” played by Midnight Mass actor and big nerd Rahul Kohli. The planet you’re on is named ‘Carcosa’, perhaps suggesting a continuation of the cosmic horror bits that Returnal did so well.

It does sound very similar to Returnal otherwise, which is no bad thing. If you missed that one, it was a third person shooter with roguelite and metroidvania elements that stood out from the pack through incredibly nifty gunfeel and enemy design, and a pretty singular atmosphere of sci-fi tinged dread. It was, dare I say, cosmic horror done right.

That said, it could also be very punishing until you got your bearings, which I imagine put some folks off early. Saros is aiming to do things a little differently. I can’t write “a little differently” without my internal monologue making it sound like it’s written in cool guy voice with The Fonz fingers. It is actually a little different though. From the PlayStation blog:

A key gameplay distinction between Saros and Returnal is permanent resources and progression making every death valuable. After every death you will face a changed world, but in Saros you will be able to choose and permanently upgrade your loadout from an evolving set of weapons and suit upgrades to “come back stronger” to overcome the challenges you face on Carcosa.

Roguelite meta progression?! Surely no valued RPS commenters will have strong and often insightful opinions on that universally good design feature!

It took the original Returnal a couple of years to come to PC. Sony have scooped up Housemarque since then, so whether this complicates matters I’m not sure. Sony have talked about focusing more on PC in the past, and we’ve seen previously exclusive titles hit Steam with increasing frequency lately. They also finally dropped that pesky PSN account requirement last month. Oh, and do play Housemarque’s other game Nex Machina if you haven’t, it’s excellent.

RPS co-founder Alec Meer wrote for Returnal and is the lead writer on Saros.