Is Saros too easy? Carcosan Modifiers can be your difficulty settings

If you had a tough time with Returnal, you might be understandably worried about how you’ll fare with Saros. After all, Housemarque’s latest PlayStation 5 exclusive is the same breed of bullet-hell roguelike. You’ll need to weave through waves of glowing energy balls as you shoot down hostile bots and aggressive aliens. It’s a lot to keep up with while juggling the demands of a die-and-try-again roguelike. Don’t get too nervous, because Saros is much easier than Returnal.

Well, sort of. It’s more accurate to say that Saros can be much easier than Returnal… if you want it to be. While the sci-fi shooter doesn’t have difficulty modes in the traditional sense, it does have a massive layer of metaprogression built to ease your suffering on each run. More impactful, though, are its Carcosan Modifiers. These powerful tools let you customize the experience to your liking, finding a more creative solution to difficulty. If you’re going to use them, just be aware of how much power you have: Carcosan Modifiers can turn Saros into a total cakewalk.

Carcosan Modifiers are automatically unlocked early in Saros, though you’re never explicitly told when it happens. After beating the second biome, you’ll notice that a new tab has opened on the computer terminal in The Passage. (Some players reported that they unlocked the system earlier, after dying to the first biome’s boss a few times.) You can use the tool to enable modifiers and boosts on your runs that are entirely separate from your skill tree. That includes giving yourself more attack power, removing corruption faster, and fully healing before a boss fight. There are negative mods, too, which can take away your revive, reduce the amount of Lucenite you bank, and more.

The catch is that you can’t simply flip every positive trait on and call it a day. There’s a gauge at the top of the page that you’ll need to keep balanced to lock in your selection. Every mod has a point value attached and will shift the needle on the gauge. Helpful traits will tick you closer to the red zone, while harmful ones will push you in the other direction. If you want to equip a bunch of damage and armor boosts, you’ll need to pick some negative mods to do so. On paper, it’s a smart approach to difficulty that requires players to make sacrifices.

The system isn’t optimally balanced, though, which can make it easy to accidentally activate the equivalent of Story Mode while toying around. In my review, I noted that I was able to beat the final four biomes without dying once. I even took down the final boss with nearly a full health bar. As a PSA for players who need help and for those who don’t want to make the game too easy, here’s a mod loadout that turns you into a god with few repercussions.

Image: Housemarque/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Here, I boosted both Damage and Armor Enhancement to their maximum level. That put me at -14 on the gauge, which couldn't be locked in. I balanced that out with two negative traits that don’t make much of a difference with those particular boosts active. Lucinite Devaluation reduces how much upgrade currency you bank when returning to The Passage. But even with the mod at tier two, you still get a ton if you beat a biome. (Plus, who needs upgrades if you’re virtually invincible?) I also toggled Power Decelerator, a mod that decreases power accumulated through your shield, to its second tier. That can be a handy superpower when you’re struggling to beat bosses early on, but you won’t need it at all if you’re maxing your base power. Those four mods get you to -2 on the gauge, which can be successfully locked in.

If you’re struggling to get through Saros or just want to see its story through, I can vouch for that modifier loadout. It gives you plenty of flexibility if you have trouble dodging attacks — especially when paired with your permanent skill tree upgrades and run-specific artifacts. You can even add in Overlord Restoration, the -1 value mod that restores your health before a boss fight, for a little extra breathing room.

Just be careful not to go overboard if you’re not looking to trivialize the challenge of Saros altogether. Builds like this can make the roguelike aspect of the game entirely moot and turn it into a linear action experience. The unbalanced nature of Carcosan Modifiers means that you can break the game far more than you think, without actually taking any risks in return. It’s a problem Housemarque could stand to iron out in some post-launch updates, readjusting some of the mod values. Until then, consider my build a free cheat code.