The alien world of Saros feels as if he has been touched by King Midas. The sky turns golden after another regular eclipse; stones, especially those of the precious Lucenite resource, emit a clear amber. Even the body of our annoying hero Arjun Devraj (played by Rahul Kohli) is liable to turn a deep, bright yellow as he makes his way through the desert of Carcosa. When he dies (a common occurrence), the game cuts to mysterious, hidden images, one of which is a double bed covered in sheets of gold silk.
It’s a well-deserved beauty at a time when gaming has never been a more prominent activity (seriously, have you seen how much the PlayStation 5 costs these days?). But this sense of danger aside, the shiny gold-colored presentation speaks to the game where each frame feels like it’s burning with a magnificent light. Saros among other things, third person shooter hell. This means it’s often throwing hundreds, if not thousands, of slow-moving and fast-moving projects at you at any given time. Some of these projectiles are gold; others are red and blue; all lit up cavernous 3D arenas while you pluck your supernatural characters out of the ether. The result is mesmerizing, a kind of divine spectacle fireworks show.
If the gaming experience Sarosthe new PS5 exclusive from Finnish studio Housemarque, often skips, its sci-fi wrapper keeps the action focused. Arjun is part of a rescue mission sent to the barren but mineral-rich world of Carcosa, charged with investigating an endangered human colony. But the main character just gets stuck in a time loop, just like Selene did in the excellent previous Housemarque game, Returning. At various points, he is able to cause solar eclipses that cause the world to become dark and dangerous, filling with warping objects that strike an uneasy balance between living things and machines, such as metal monsters The Matrix.
The mashup of influences is familiar, but carefully put together in a way that works Saros feel new: High-rise, bio-synthetic structures clearly influenced by HR Giger; the talk of the Ancients evokes Ridley Scott Prometheus. Every great site made me think about it The Stargate; cosmic dread is pure Event Horizon. In horror of the game’s standout visual leitmotif, a giant burning sun, Housemarque calls Danny Boyle’s undated. Sunshine.
The infernal ambience is compounded and how Saros sounds: the girdling bogs of the Blighted Marsh; whirring, hot mechanical sounds; Sam Slater’s epic song, cranked up to 11 that moves seamlessly between doom music and loud club music, strikes a kind of hellish harmony with the animal moans Arjun has awakened from their slumber.
There were many times when it was playing Saros when I said to myself, “fucking awesome.” That happened a few nights ago, but in order to explain what was special about that session, I really need to explain the structure of the game.
Saroslike Returningit’s a roguelite, which means it has a less punishing run-based structure than A scoundrel-decreasing siblings like Spelunky again Rogue Legacy. That’s not what he said Saros it’s not hard – it can be. But the challenge is partially solved by endless upgrades bought between runs, which boost your health, firepower, or ability to collect resources.
Less than the first 10 hours Sarosi died about 25 times going from the beautiful mountain area to the huge castle. Along the way, I experienced the thrill of arm-to-arm rifles with stun bullets and space crossbows that fire powerful bolts. The game is divided into different locations, but you can teleport back to any of them once you’ve reached it, thus starting Arjun a little further on his journey each time.
Photo: Sony Interactive Entertainment
One night, I decided to start jogging in the first place. With my plethora of upgrades, I tore through the early game enemies, hitting nothing. Despite your meta progress, Arjun moves with liquid-mercury smoothness and impossible speed. The dashes actually make you invincible for a split second. Picking up new and more powerful weapons, I opened fire on the bosses who had captured me hours earlier. As the race went on for a long time, I became more powerful: Arjun, the creator of the eclipse and the user of alien technology, began to feel like a god. When it came to the boss I still had to do better, a floating evil eye surrounded by wraith-like orbs, I took it down easily, I was very charged from the cumulative boost of the session as a whole.
I’m not good at such difficult games. But Saros it gives even a player like me ways to improve. I usually rely on weapons that have a forgiving auto-aim, like the Smart Rifle, whose spectral red bullets turn well against the game’s many Lovecraftian enemies. One power-up sees Arjun launch what looks like a mini solar eclipse, dealing lethal damage to anything that comes close to you.
Over the past 30 years, Housemarque has built a solid reputation for punishing shooters from hell (see also Nex Machina again Resogun). However with Sarosyou can feel the studio, now owned by Sony, grappling with a conundrum: how to make the genre accessible without diluting its essential, thumb-punishing essence.
The game is very much in favor of this balance, although its binding moments are always very deadly. I’ve had battles with hordes of enemies that seem to take up every inch of space from ground to sky, dropping polyrhythmic volleys of orbs. When Arjun stands still, he makes toast, so she keeps him moving – punching and weaving, ducking and diving through a spirograph-like arrangement of invisible light to find security packs that keep repositioning.
Arjun has his own reasons for pushing forward with such a bloody goal: namely, a lost love interest in Carcosa. But this narrative thread inevitably ends in the midst of all the psychedelic shooting. In the end, I saw him as less of a human than a type of phosphorus energy. Arjun, and by extension the player, is the catalyst for the game whose kaleidoscopic chain reaction is as beautiful as it is brutal. It’s a game that sets the world on fire.
Saros launches on PS5 on April 30.
