Saros (2026)

Article: Saros - One Battle After Another by Kyle Hilliard

Unlike Returnal, however, the narrative is taking a different approach. Returnal was, by design, a lonely game. Selene rarely, if ever, communicated with others, but Arjun is not alone. He has a woman in his ear helping him progress and marking important elements on the map. We also saw Arjun interacting with a speaking hologram from the past. It seems this will be a much chattier game.

The team at Housemarque also appears to be addressing what may have been the biggest complaint levied against Returnal: It’s too challenging. Saros undoubted- ly looks tough, as we saw Arjun speeding around environments, dodging walls of bullets and leaping over gigantic chasms. But we also saw him come back to life after his first death to immediately pick up the fight with Second Chance. “Second Chance is part of our permanent progression systems, which means you will always come back stronger,” Louden said.

Happy to see another game by Housemarque. I really enjoyed Returnal though unfortunately, based on the dialogue, it seems they're sticking with the rogue-like formula. I hate rogue-likes, I really do, though it stung particularly hard in Returnal. The game and other rogue-likes that rely on skill based combat, don't really account for what happens when someone is better than the average player for these kinds of games. Returnal was a game that very much wanted and expected you to die numerous times, allowing you to slowly and gradually unveil it's eerie mystery and narrative. I remember watching Jacob Geller's video on the game and him gushing about the high difficulty, how ridiculous the first boss was, the numerous attempts him and various people he knew went through, all culminating in the game's first "twist". My experience was nothing like that in the slightest. First boss? I don't even remember it cause I waltzed past it. I cleared the game on a single run just fine by playing carefully, and while the experience was great even so, it was very blatantly obvious that I missed out on a huge chunk of the game's narrative.

This is an issue that only affects an incredibly small minority. Should they address it? I don't think so, since this is simply the nature of rogue-likes. I had the same issue with Hades though that one was far more egregious because the dialogue and story straight up made zero sense if you clear your first run very early on. It disappointed me in Returnal because I love just about everything else in the game. I was absolutely hooked that first run I did from the very start to the end and I just couldn't help think constantly that I was definitely missing stuff by not dying. I considered dying various times for the sake of it but I'm a very stubborn person. Anyway, I'm just being grumpy. The REAL issue here is how this is looking to be ps5 exclusive again for a while which just translates to potentially a 2028 release window for me.