00:00My hands are shaking, eyes wide as I try to pirouette through a barrage of swirling multicolored
00:05bullets from a hulking rooty tree thing called Prophet. About 30 minutes into one of my early
00:10runs in Saros, this boss is putting me through the wringer, whipping up my pointed toes as I
00:14desperately try to survive through a surprise second phase with dwindling health. This ain't
00:18no swan lake. I dodge, I weave, I ease the dual sense triggers to use alt fire blast when I
00:24have
00:24space. Finally, it falls. Then it gets back up. Come on, a third phase? As someone who felt like
00:30they mastered Returnal's third-person shooting well enough to consistently bash through runs,
00:35in this moment Saros begins to feel like a gargantuan challenge. Saros is a wonderful
00:39spiritual sequel to Returnal, but it's a different evolved beast at the same time,
00:44with well-judged difficulty providing an excellent challenge that's satisfying to overcome. Forget
00:48being a PS5 must play, Saros is feeling like game of the year material already. Funnelling me into a
00:55small corridor, walls of roots restricting movement, it feels like Prophet is issuing me a direct
01:00challenge. Stop trying to play Saros like Returnal. So I do, with dodging in such a small space feeling
01:05like a death sentence, I instead have the tenacious Saltari Enforcer Arjun Devraj, played by Rahul Kohli,
01:11square up to the light show-like display of bullets, readying his shield to meet the threats of alien
01:15planet Carcosa head-on. Using this piece of Megacorp tech from back home depletes the energy
01:20levels of Arjun's armor, but absorbing compatible bullets restores even more of that energy,
01:25able to be overcharged and blasted out to deal devastating damage. Blue bullets do this unhindered,
01:30but yellow bullets, corrupted by the Carcosa's frequent strange eclipses,
01:34spread that corruption throughout Arjun's suit, reducing his armor capacity until I cleanse it with
01:39each power blast. During the climax of my duel against Prophet, my health already dwindling,
01:44playing it safe as I might have done in Retail, isn't going to cut it.
01:48Fully embracing the utility of Arjun's shield, I accept that from this point on,
01:52health doesn't really matter. Constantly swarming me with corrupted yellow bullets,
01:56as well as the safer blue ones, I push through them all with no distinction.
02:00Hold. Release. Blast. Hold. Release. Blast.
02:03Mistiming getting that shield up will see Arjun obliterated.
02:06Too late, and the final 10% dregs of his armor will be shredded.
02:09But too early, and I won't have enough shield energy recharge to even begin sucking them in.
02:13By the end, I'm not dodging at all,
02:16deliberately making myself a target to ensure as many bullets pepper into me as possible.
02:20With this long narrow arena, it becomes a tennis match.
02:23A volley of bullets that I keep throwing back in a Prophet's face.
02:26A proper duel.
02:27When Prophet crumbles, I'm exhausted.
02:29Returnal's runs could take well over an hour,
02:31seeing how far into each sequence of levels you could get, unsure how far you'd make it.
02:35In Saros, I'm relieved to see that after this first boss,
02:38I activate a teleportation shortcut back to Arjun's base of operations,
02:42The Passage, which I can use to return to tackle the next level immediately,
02:46or start from square one to hoover up upgrades through levels and bosses back to back if I so wish.
02:51Housemarque tells me that aiming for these chunks of play to average about 30 minutes in length is
02:55deliberate, and it feels like a smart move, giving me much needed time to breathe and let that stress out.
03:00Clashes and Saros, rewarding you for risking maneuvering close to enemy fire,
03:03can feel so much more intense than Returnal, where staying on the move was often the catch-all strategy.
03:09Sultari, the megacorp that sent Arjun and his crew off to shipwreck on Carcosa,
03:13are eager to get their hands on the planet's enigmatic eclipse-fueled natural resources.
03:18Though the preceding expeditions have seen each colonization attempt to go mysteriously missing,
03:22Arjun's unit is specifically geared up to find out why, and for some,
03:26that mission is much more personal than the clinical profit margin Sultari are chasing.
03:30That tension is already a highlight, and best observed through Primary,
03:33Sultari, an almost snake-like, mechanized artificial intelligence unit that can improve Arjun's gear.
03:38Teleport back to base camp for the first time, and it'll briefly be confused before scanning you.
03:43Declaring the technology now property of Sultari, and notifying Arjun he'll have a bonus in his payslip,
03:48while our man just rolls his eyes. It's charmingly halish. Primary upgrades aren't all talk either.
03:54Besides Arjun's shield, permanent upgrades through the armor matrix is the biggest way Sarov diverges from
03:58Returnal. Scooping up resources from destroyed enemies or caches, they can be traded in to
04:03progress up a big skill tree. Primarily giving Arjun's stronger starting stats or for gear rolls to have
04:08a higher base level. In my demo, some nodes on this tree are locked behind defeating certain bosses,
04:12so there's a cap on how many upgrades Arjun can accrue that's tied to progression. But there's plenty
04:16up for grabs if you want to focus on getting stronger to get a leg up in those boss fights.
04:20Similarly, Kakosan modifiers allow for further world-altering tweaks, and are also set at Primary
04:26before an excursion. Split between positive and negative modifiers that you aim to balance,
04:30you may trigger for instance a wider collection radius on resource drops, but then need to
04:34counteract by setting enemies to do more damage. Not simply a difficulty mode, it allows you to
04:39explore adding your own layer of risk-reward. Sarov's roguelike structure means there will be
04:44plenty of time to experiment as you fight through each of Kakos' environments, even if teleportation
04:49means you can now start directly at each new unlocked area if you wish. Between deaths, the planet
04:53reforms and shapeshifts so that Arjun won't have to battle through a freshly formed sequence of rooms.
04:57It's a similar approach to Returnal, but like with the more focused runtimes, feels tightened up.
05:02Each handcrafted chunk of level feels well designed, especially when it comes to presenting
05:06interesting spaces for intense shootouts with foes. Beyond each of Sarov's rooms feeling well
05:11designed, so too does the experience of moving between them. Some areas have multiple exits to
05:15progress forward, and whether one leads towards the main objective or is a side route is marked clearly
05:20on Arjun's minimap. These side spaces are always worth exploring if you're able to. Some are locked and
05:25require collectable keys, or sometimes new traversal upgrades you presumably get later.
05:29Arjun's base levels are upgraded between each run. He'll still be stripped of power-ups each run,
05:33so hoovering up number-juicing upgrades as you plunge once more into Kakos' depth is vital.
05:38Sarov's eclipses even make for a cleaner indication of that risk-reward ramp-up too.
05:43Housemat calls Kakos' lunar phenomena an escalation, in just about every sense. Arjun begins exploring each
05:49environment as normal, but always comes up against a progression blocker that he'll need to remove
05:53by interfacing with strange alien technology that initiates an eclipse. Under this phenomenon,
05:58new life is breathed into this otherwise almost dead world. Ancient forests stir once again,
06:03abandoned factories were back to life, allowing for new ways to progress with new dangers to match from
06:07tougher beasties to having to move between laser cutting tools. Pressure is added just about
06:12everywhere during an eclipse. Beyond just adding corruption to enemy blasts, it seeps everywhere,
06:16into gear 2, teasing power at a cost. A huge power surge may now saddle Arjun with a decrease in
06:22power if he shoots while stationary. Or, much worse, introduce fall damage. I will never look
06:27before I leap. Likewise, a hefty new gun may come at the cost of stripping away auto-aim capabilities.
06:33Saras is constantly making me think which debuffs I'm willing to handle in order to become vastly more
06:38powerful, and weighing up the cost of playing it safe versus feeling underpowered. I've yet to get a
06:43full sense of Saras' broader structure. But getting to run a few loops across two levels,
06:47including beating them front to back one after another, is enough to convince me this quicker,
06:51more intense play is absolutely the evolution of the Returnal formula I wanted to see. Just
06:57three hours has been enough time to get me comfortable with when to embrace the eclipse,
07:00which side paths to poke through, and which gear I want to pocket on each randomised run. But it's
07:05also made it clear there's so much more to experience as I find new layers of depth. Meeting that danger
07:11head on, and growing comfortable with it, is all part of Arjun's journey. The second boss I face
07:16plays with this, blasting out waves of bullets that mix blue and yellow shots together, teasing me with
07:21potential non-corrupted paths to weave through for optimal damage. Then, there's a laser blasting out
07:26unblockable damage in its centre, but surrounded by absorbable bullets. Play it safe and just run,
07:31or ride the very edge of the danger zone to blast all that energy right back out. It's possible to
07:36play
07:36cautiously in Saros, but the allure of embodying Arjun fully and learning how to blast right through
07:41is hard to resist. What about you? Are you excited to play Saros? Are you a fan of Returnal and
07:46can't
07:47wait for a new challenge? Let us know in the comments and stick with GamesRadar for the latest previews,
07:51reviews and more.
08:06I'd like to see you in our next episode.
08:06Let me give you a hint.
08:06I've been a shout out to you in the comments.
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