Housemarque and Sony have released a chunky five minutes of gameplay for the upcoming looper shooter roguelike Saros – the sequel to Returnal. The team have confirmed that Saros is coming to PS5 and PS5 Pro on 20th March 2026.
This latest tale takes players to the planet Carcosa, with an ominous eclipse and the end of the world sending Arjun Devraj (portrayed by Rahul Kohli) into a deadly time loop. He’s a Soltari Enforcer, looking for answers on a lost off-world colony which is repeatedly being destroyed by way and the death of the planet’s sun. He’s a bit chattier, it seems, as he has an AI companion, and hunt down Soltari datalog vaults to reveal more of the game’s story.
The gameplay structure will sound pretty familiar. It’s a roguelike third person shooter, very much in the vein of Returnal, with a permanent progression system wrapped around individual runs that reshape the world and give you new upgrade possibilities to find on the next attempt.
The action looks a bit faster than Returnal, though this may be my imagination, with more sprinting and dashing. Arjun comes with a Soltari Shield that can absorb and reflect projectives, using them to feel the Power Weapon, an Eclipse-driven weapon.
Second Chance is one of he permanent progression features, able to revive Arjun on his first death to immediately throw him back into the action of a particular run.
The video built up to the reveal of a big many-armed boss, with many more snippets of titanic gameplay to round things out.
Looking back on Returnal, our glowing 9/10 review of the PS5 launch window game said, “It feels immensely satisfying to be sat here in 2021, eons after playing Super Stardust HD on PS3, and see just how far Housemarque has come. Offering a visual bullet hell spectacle, a showcase for the DualSense controller and a rewarding sci-fi narrative woven around the roguelike loop, we can say with unflinching confidence that Returnal is the PS5’s best game to date.”
