Saros Dev Explains How the PS5 Game Is More Approachable, Customisable Than Returnal

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Housemarque, the team making the new PS5 game Saros, has shared a video explaining how it will be different from their previous game, Returnal.

The team’s primary goal is to make Saros easier and more enjoyable to use.

Returnal is a true roguelike: you begin each playthrough with limited resources, essentially starting from scratch. While you can keep some permanent items like specific equipment and weapon upgrades, you don’t permanently improve Selene’s abilities between runs.

Saros handles progression uniquely. The game begins by briefly showcasing its upgrade system, where you’ll use an in-game currency called Lucenite to unlock lasting improvements and new skills.

Despite adding permanent upgrades, Housemarque promises the game will remain difficult. “We’re not trying to make the game easier,” explains Matti Hälki, associate design director. “We want to give players more control over how they play.”

As a gamer, I really appreciate how Saros lets me tweak the difficulty with their Carcosan Modifiers. It’s cool to have that extra level of control and customize the challenge to my liking.

In this game, you can choose helpful bonuses to simplify certain parts, but you’ll also need to select challenges to keep things balanced. It’s about finding the right mix to create a gameplay experience that’s both enjoyable and engaging.

This feature lets you get help with the most challenging parts of the task without making the overall experience too easy.

You can customize your abilities with perks, like dealing more damage or making perfect reloads easier. However, activating these perks also requires you to accept some drawbacks, such as losing some Lucenite or experiencing faster Corruption buildup.

So, it sounds like there’s a ton of customization coming! I can really tweak things to find a difficulty that I like. Apparently, they’re giving us some pretty extreme options – even letting us turn off permanent upgrades if we want a real challenge, which is awesome. Hälki told me we can really make the game as hard as we want.

One thing I’m really excited about is that, unlike Returnal, we’ll be able to jump back to areas we’ve already unlocked whenever we want. That’s a huge quality-of-life improvement and will make exploring so much more relaxed!

We were big fans of Housemarque’s last game, though we recognized its challenging difficulty and limited sense of advancement could be discouraging for some players. It seems like Saros is working to make the experience more accessible while still keeping the fast-paced, exciting gameplay that defines Housemarque titles.

Saros will be available on April 30th. We’ve made it a bit more user-friendly with improved features and customization options. Let us know what you think in the comments!

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2026-03-21 04:37