Saros aims for bite-sized 30-minute runs, and the cool-off makes you "ready for another", its game designer tells me

"The biggest goal was to make it more of an evolution," says Saros lead game designer Abebe Tinari when I ask about developing a spiritual rather than direct sequel to Housemarque's electric PS5 launch window title. The aim has been to "build off what Returnal established and add elements like the shield, different types of bullets, take the bullet ballet formula, but then bring something new to it."

Central to this vision was "Evolutionizing our gameplay, [and] being more cinematic, as well," adds narrative designer Khalil Osaimi. Specifically, how the team was to "drive the story" through this new, theatrical lens. The result stars Rahul Kohli as Solatari Enforcer Arjun Devraj, on a mission to find out what happened to a lost colony on alien planet Carcosa – and, already, there's more immediate cinematic flair to this tale than Selene's often isolated journey on Returnal.

Prestige power

For starters, Arjun has other survivors of his spaceship crash to talk to between roguelike expeditions into the dangerous world. Each run is designed to last about 30-minutes, there's more narrative hooks for those who want them, and a dedication to "coming back stronger" means Arjun can power-up permanently after each run. Returnal could be challenging to the point it was tough to get into, and while Saros is still difficult, it's aiming to have more options to embrace any players interested.

Going hands-on with the first three hours of Saros for myself, just beating one boss fight after a half an hour run already made me feel tense enough to need a break. I really like having the option to nip back to homebase The Passage to take a breather and level up, and then be able to teleport right back into the action to continue pushing deeper.

"I want to get the player back into the action, but I think that even just speaking personally as a player of Returnal, there were times that after a multi-hour run after dying, my hands were kind of shaking, you know? It was a bit difficult to kind of be like: OK, I'm gonna get right back into it," says Tinari. "I appreciate having that beat to go back to The Passage, talk to some people, get a bit more of that story context, and that allows me just to get into the headspace of going back out there, right? That's reinforced by the Armor Matrix to get a bit stronger, and then you feel like: Yeah, I'm ready for another run."

Having spent three hours playing Saros, I definitely agree. The average time out playing levels in Saros can be shorter (though you can still run environments back to back if you want), but that doesn't necessarily mean my full play sessions will be. If anything, almost like binging a short TV show, the prospect of dipping back in for one more half-hour run feels conducive to engrossing me for many hours. Those three hours flew by.

Thinking about that TV episode-like length, I ask Osaimi if that helps with storytelling. "Yeah – pacing, and finding that line between gameplay and when do we want to introduce a story beat. There is the main [story]line to understand what's going on, to evolve with Arjun as a character as his layers unravel," he says. "Then, right back to the high-octane action."

Arjun's power progression, alongside his bullet-absorbing shield, feels like a major differentiator between it and Returnal. "It's this constant design space we're trying to explore – how do we keep the edge of the difficulty while also allowing more people to enjoy the game?" says Tinari. "For me, the most important feeling is when you're facing an enemy you've died to several times. You know it's coming. You arrive, you die a couple times. Then, eventually, you overcome it. That feeling – [Oscar,] I think you mentioned your hands were shaking. That's the feeling we're going for, and how do we bring that to more people? The Armor Matrix is one aspect of that"

Right where you also access the World Dial to teleport to the start of each level, Soltari AI overseer, Primary, can also upgrade your armor's power to access new abilities. The currency for Armor Matrix skilltree unlocks are found throughout runs in caches, or from defeated enemies, and retained when you die and return to The Passage. Though, beating each boss is eventually required to clear a node on the skilltree, meaning there's a limit to the boosts you can get for each chunk of the game.

Armor up

"The game doesn't solve itself for you – you still have to dodge, you still have to absorb, you still have to shoot with a good timing – but it just gives you a little bit of a step up each time," says Tinari of the Armor Matrix's role. "In the early part of the tree, you unlock the ability to get power from corrupted bullets. So when you first play in the Eclipse, you're getting this corruption, and it feels like you're way at a disadvantage. When you unlock the node that gives you power from corrupted bullets, you're still in danger [...] But now you just have that way of punching back with the power weapon."

Arjun gaining the power to use the corruption that would otherwise kill him, at the risk of it temporarily draining his max armor, is almost as much of a character story beat as it is an upgrade – Saros may be "gameplay first" as Housemarque describe it, but both play and narrative are very much in sync.

Ensuring Arjun's progression of power can still create that feeling of tension, however, has been a balancing act. "[It's not] invalidating the difficulty, but giving people ways to overcome the challenge," says Tinari. "The other aspect of that was briefly shown in one of the gameplay trailers – the Carcosan modifiers, our approach to: how do we let players control difficulty without saying 'I just can't handle it, I'm going to stop', or 'I'm going to make it easy mode.' It's more about, 'Where do I want that difficulty to be? What are my strengths as a player?'"

At the end of my hands-on with Saros I got to play around with these modifiers a little bit to replay a couple of levels. Also accessed alongside the Armor Matrix and the World Dial, these toggles present a range of buffs and debuffs that apply to the world for your run, balanced as a semi-circular dial. Each selected buff pulls it towards the left, and debuffs tilt it to the right. You might choose a wider radius for sucking up those all-important upgrade resources at the cost of enemies dealing more damage – and more modifiers seem to be unlocked as you progress.

"It's always fun to try and challenge conventions of a genre. With Returnal, it was very much this roguelike structure, but you had third-person shooting [that] was this new challenge, new frontier for it. We have this basis now, so we're asking ourselves: what aspects of the roguelike do we like, and what do we want to augment?" says Tinari. "One thing for us was to keep the feeling of danger when you're on a long run, where you don't want to lose your progress; but also reduce the feeling of helplessness when you know there's a potential like three hours to get back to where I was, right?" Returnal's sense of danger was great, but I have to admit it could be disheartening to lose due to some rotten luck deep into a run.

"There's no objectively right answer, but we tried to strike this balance [in Saros]. For example, you have teleportation unlocked after you get to the second biome, so you have this option," says Tinari. "Do I want to do the whole run from the first biome into the second to reach the second boss, and have all the artifacts and weapons that I've gained along the way, which will give me kind of a head start against the boss? Or, do I want to save time? Maybe I want to practice the fight, learn the enemies, learn the boss's patterns."

Giving players that freedom when it comes to Saros' structure and progression "helps with pacing", says Osaimi. "But I think it also [...] promotes the replayability aspect as well. With shorter runs, being able to go back and experience those in a shorter time frame adds a lot." I agree – even when Saros meets me with failure, it's much easier to dust Arjun off to get back into the fight once again, to dive into Carcosa for just one more run, to scoop up enough resources for more unlock, or simply to run head long into danger for one more shot – or, of course, the hot pursuit of revenge.

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