'Saros' nails the cosmic horror and bullet-hell action assignments, but it falls short as a roguelite

Saros might be PlayStation's first blockbuster of 2026, but it also feels like a direct answer to the more padded adventures currently flooding the gaming space. It's fast and brutal, but players aren't expected to be stuck on Carcosa for too long. It's a more refined and accessible roguelite third-person shooter... but also one with less bite. Developer Housemarque is no stranger to choosing an arcade-y rhythm and less typical structure over cinematic or sandbox approaches, and Saros could be a sequel to 2021's Returnal , if it weren't for the completely different setting. There's a human protagonist stuck on a seemingly doomed, faraway world trying to break a time loop. There are lots of sci-fi guns to play with. There's a huge mystery at the center of the adventure... the list goes on. And why not? Returnal was a fantastic game. The studio was right to be confident about what it did with its first roguelite sci-fi actioner, and it has directly addressed player feedback to improve this follow-up. A big “problem” with Returnal was that a shockingly low number of players finished it even years after its release. Roguelite games are traditionally hard, but Returnal took things a bit further, as you didn't get many permanent upgrades the more you played. Each run was also remarkably long, even with the added shortcuts. …