00:00Saros comes together with a single line.
00:03How does it endure without entropy?
00:06It's a throwaway comment in reference to alien machinery,
00:09but something about that idea permeates for the entirety of Saros.
00:14The latest third-person bullet-hell shooter and sci-fi roguelike from Housemarque and Sony.
00:20How does something important last without breaking down?
00:23How does a person cheat death and persevere?
00:26And do certain gameplay ideas hold up when revisiting them half a decade after inclusion in your previous work?
00:33The questions will stay with me long after the final credits have rolled,
00:36as while Housemarque has duplicated slightly more of their previous game than was probably necessary,
00:42the final result is still an excellent example of effort, artistry and extremely incandescent artillery.
00:58How does it work?
00:59Sent to investigate a missing mining colony on Carcosa, a planet flush with precious unobtainium,
01:05corporate security Arjun Devraj, Raul Kohli with a perpetually furrowed brow,
01:10wakes up to discover he's lost all memory of his arrival.
01:14His ship has crashed, half his team has gone murderously bonkers,
01:18and the sun-scoured world they've dropped onto is full of twisting roguelike paths
01:22through the ruins of a dead civilization.
01:24Well, not so dead that it isn't prowling with weird monsters and still functional security systems.
01:31In the skies above, erratic solar eclipses herald eerie changes in both the native monsters
01:37and the visiting humans, infusing events with eldritch horror.
01:41And even beyond that, Arjun keeps coming back to life every time he's killed,
01:46a fact that, frankly, nobody on the team seems sufficiently curious about.
01:50The inspirations are as apparent as they are endless.
01:53The game is an overt homage to RW Chambers' 1895 story collection The King in Yellow,
01:59but there's also general Lovecraftian lore in there, as well as elements of Solaris,
02:04Danny Boyle's 2009 movie Sunshine, Alien, Dead Space and the Silent Hill franchise,
02:10all mixed with Hindu symbolism and iconography.
02:13Yet the one influential light that shines brightest here is Returnal.
02:17Like Returnal, Saras is about a spacefaring explorer with a troubled past,
02:21dropped on a hostile planet where linear time is more suggestion than doctrine.
02:25The quick bullet hell combat and platforming focused exploration is basically the same.
02:31The tone is near identical, the roguelike mechanics are frequently one-to-one translations,
02:36and some of the enemies might even be cameos or reused assets depending on how generous you're feeling.
02:41I suspect the only reason this isn't called Returnal 2 is because Returnal's niche appeal couldn't justify the choice.
02:58Whether familiar to you or not, it's Saras' combat that will stick with you.
03:02It's a fast-paced experience about snap decisions and moment-to-moment reactivity based on what the enemy is throwing
03:08at you.
03:09Blue bullets? Shield. Yellow beams? Dodge. Red balls? Parry.
03:14It's appropriate that unbroken kill combos power you up with an adrenaline meter,
03:19as twitchy, lower-brain, flow-state thinking overrides all higher functions by the end of a good battle,
03:25your heart thundering in your chest after several minutes spent flying purely on instinct.
03:30Still, I'm a bit disappointed by the selection of guns.
03:33There are five main weapon types and four flavours of super attacks with variations on each.
03:38But that's not enough to stop things from eventually getting repetitive,
03:41as when you're vaulting over laser beams, one handgun tends to feel like another.
03:45And aside from the standard shooter fare, pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, crossbow,
03:49the only conceptually interesting weapon is the blade-shooting chakram launcher,
03:54which ends up being too fiddly to be viable in the frenetic chaos of combat.
03:58A couple more wild cards in Saris' arsenal certainly wouldn't have gone amiss.
04:03In Housemarque's effort to make the roguelike experience more accessible,
04:06the studio arguably sands down an edge or two more than necessary.
04:10An easier start gives way to heftier challenges in the mid-game,
04:14but then somehow ends up easier than ever near the finale, which I can't imagine is intentional.
04:19This is due to a system of permanent upgrades that allows you to spend resources on better stats and
04:24abilities between runs, as well as a system for tweaking difficulty by adding in various gameplay
04:29modifiers. It's nice that no run need ever be entirely wasted, as you can spend the cash you
04:34earned back at the middle manager vending machine who lives in the hub zone, but a bit more balancing
04:39wouldn't have gone amiss. But there's plenty more factors to elevate the experience again.
04:45Some of the later boss fights are magnificent in their cinematic splendour, and there's a strong
04:49sense of aesthetic across the board. In Saros, the omnipresent sun stands at the centre of
04:54everything. But this isn't a hearty, healing summer warmth. The light from above is terrible
04:59and potentious, with a mixture of drone metal and synth-laden electronic music setting a harshly
05:05awe-inspiring tone. There's an uncomfortable sense that you're being toyed with by higher forces,
05:10the eclipsed sun, a merciless eye that sees everything. Meanwhile, constant themes of sand and dust
05:15gives events a literal gritty quality, as is the uncomfortable and loaded image of
05:20grasping hands that recurs throughout.
05:25It's me, boss.
05:26All of the theming, of course, centres around our protagonists, and Arjun Devraj is a strong
05:31character for all of this to hang on. Early on, I was worried he was going to be a bit
05:34of a generic
05:35Joe, but more fool me. That's just Saros playing its cards close to its chest for the first act.
05:40His unwavering desire to rescue the lost colony comes across as a blandly heroic
05:45motivation, until we discover that Devraj has had more going on than he's willing to admit,
05:50adding layers of complexity that gradually turn an off-the-rack protagonist into something much
05:55messier and far more interesting. Coley, a proven actor, isn't always given a huge amount to work
06:01with, but things always get interesting when the script allows him to show off his skills. An early
06:06flash of rage where he sweeps everything off a table would feel de rigueur in most meathead action
06:11protagonist, but Coley in the scene direction sells it as something more, especially when it flies in
06:17the face of the focused, level-headed soldier we've been experiencing until now. As a result,
06:22it's a lurch that forces us to reconsider our leading man, especially in the context of a story
06:27where characters are becoming violently unstable. A dark sign of things to come, or an understandable
06:32outburst in a high-stress situation. More broadly, the storytelling is decently handled,
06:38with some good ideas and creative choices. Though I'd say the narrative struggles a little when it
06:43comes to pop beats outside of Coley's core arc. Certain characters feel a bit caricatured,
06:48there's certain cosmic elements I would have rather remained mysterious instead of being
06:52plainly spelled out, and there's a couple of plot twists I'd predicted several hours before
06:57their scheduled reveal, which did puncture the ta-da moment slightly. Still, the ending brought me
07:03back around, and I walked away from the story with that pleasantly ponderous feeling you get from
07:07all good science fiction, knowing I'd be thinking about it for a while afterwards.
07:12By the end of Saros, the answer to how does it endure without entropy is clear. It doesn't.
07:18Perhaps that's why it's not a hugely long game. A dedicated player can kill it off in a week or
07:22two,
07:23which is a wise choice for something that doesn't want to overstay its welcome and keep the good bits
07:27condensed. So while Saros can't help but exist in the shadow of what came before and invite
07:32comparisons that aren't always to its benefit, this is still Housemarque doing what it does best.
07:37And a strong rebuke to the idea that thoughtful and emotive stories in games always have to be
07:43paired with slow or minimalist gameplay. Explosive action and cerebral storytelling. You can have both.
07:50We give Saros 4 stars out of 5.
07:54So, will you be picking up this eldritch sci-fi shooter? What are you pumped for more? The gripping
08:00narrative or the breakneck action? Let us know and stick with GamesRadar for the latest on the
08:06greatest games of 2026.
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