Saros feels like Returnal, but it's a very different game to Housemarque

When a studio creates a bold new game that connects with a mainstream audience, it can find itself at a crossroads. Do you follow that up by doing the same thing again or taking another big swing? That was the position Housemarque found itself in after 2021’s Returnal. The dazzling PlayStation 5 shooter introduced more players to a shapeshifting studio known for creating innovative, arcade-style games. Those new fans who found Housemarque through Returnal’s unique bullet-hell roguelike experience would surely want more from a studio that rarely ever makes sequels to its own games.

Now, five years later, Housemarque has returned with a fair compromise. Saros isn’t Returnal 2, but a totally new game. It is, however, a clear variation on a theme. It repeats virtually all of Returnal’s gameplay beats, but modifies them with a tweaked approach to defense and lots more opportunities for progression. In a video interview with Polygon, creative director Gregory Louden and associate design director Matti Häkli explained how Housemarque landed the tricky balancing act of giving players the experience they’re craving while still doing something new within a familiar framework. It all comes down to the finer details.

While Housemarque aims to innovate with each of its games, there was never a question as to how it would follow Returnal. Players loved the game and the developers did too, even after playing it over and over again. The team felt there was plenty more room to push its big-budget spin on the roguelike, but a proper sequel was never really in the cards.

"After Returnal, we were like, okay, this really worked. What we're doing seems to be resonating. We found something," Louden told Polygon. "But very early on as well, we also said we want Returnal to stand on its own. We want it to be its own thing, but we did want to take some elements. We did want to reuse all of these lessons and experience from building these shapeshifting worlds. We wanted to explore cosmic horror in another lens. We wanted to create another character for you to study and examine, but we also wanted to add new elements… We just wanted to build on our success and have this evolution, but then also create something really bold and new for players."

Saros was born out of that idea. Loosely inspired by The King in Yellow, the 1985 horror story collection by Robert W. Chambers, Housemarque looked to once again tackle cosmic horror in a sci-fi shooter. Saros’ world is a small example of how the team approached that. Carcosa is visually different from Returnal’s Atropos thanks to its yellow color motif, and its design ethos is entirely new. The art team’s mission statement was to create a "stranger in a strange land" feeling, Louden said. Italian futurist architecture and Icelandic photography helped craft an entirely new artistic starting point.

Though the location was new, Housemarque still wanted players to do the same basic actions in it: shoot powerful weapons enhanced by DualSense feedback, dodge waves of glowing balls, gather gameplay-changing artifacts, die, and try again. Saros may feel rather identical to Returnal in that sense, but the changes to the formula, like the addition of an energy-absorbing shield, are a big deal for Häkli.

"I actually think of Returnal as an obstacle course," Häkli told Polygon. "It's all about avoidance. You want to avoid the bullets, you want to avoid taking damage. When we added this shield in Saros, we really flipped the dynamics of the combat gameplay and how you see the environments or the encounters. And this shield turns the obstacle course into a playground where you can start using the shield, creating openings, finding your way through, and really have this more aggressive play style, rather than just avoiding and backing out. It's way different because of that."

Image: Housemarque/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

If you’re playing spot-the-difference between Saros and Returnal, game flow is the big thing to look for. Dashing through shots, shielding against waves of blue orbs, and eventually parrying red ones back at enemies all turn Saros into what Housemarque calls a "bullet ballet."

"I always say that the game looks and plays like a shooter, but there's a really strong sense of rhythm in it," Häkli said. "When you start seeing and playing it as a rhythm game, it changes everything. Don't focus on accuracy and doing the useful stuff from shooters. That's secondary. Keep moving, find the rhythm, and you're going to get into the flow and master it."

A new approach to gameplay would coincide with a new character behind the trigger. Saros stars Arjun Devraj (played by Rahul Kohli), a hard-boiled astronaut sent to find a missing expedition on Carcosa. Devraj is very much not Selene, Returnal’s traumatized hero. The only real connection between them, according to Louden, is that they are "two people driven to a fault looking for answers." (That’s a real understatement when it comes to Arjun.) The difference between the characters necessitated a tweaked approach to combat, too.

"Arjun is a soldier. Selene was a scientist. It is a very different approach," Häkli said. "The shield makes the game more aggressive. You're going forward, you're not afraid. You can absorb the bullets, even the corrupted ones, and gain more power. It's all about this power fantasy of being the soldier who's not afraid of these aliens. I can beat them, no problem. We really want to build this character. All these core mechanics, they have the same theme: growing power and being in this hostile, corrupting world and how it affects everything."

Image: Housemarque/Sony Interactive Entertainment

While Louden describes Housemarque as a "gameplay-first" studio, part of what makes Returnal so special is that it fuses narrative with that gameplay. A late-game revelation recontextualizes the roguelike structure entirely, framing it through Selene processing her PTSD by reliving her trauma over and over again. Housemarque continued that approach for Saros, making sure that character and narrative were always in harmony with how players act during a run.

"Arjun is trying to get somewhere. Selene was trying to get out of there," Häkli said. "Like the aggressiveness and the whole gameplay loop, we're pushing the player to go forward. Go pick up everything and be as aggressive as possible."

"It's also no coincidence that Arjun punches his way through stuff," Louden added. "That's how he's done things in his life."

It's the same stuff we've been building since Resogun.

Even with those subtle changes, Saros keeps Returnal’s signature action and structure intact. Housemarque doesn’t think that it’s done exploring Returnal's formula, either. The team believes that there’s still more to do within its approach to the roguelike genre, because it doesn’t really feel like it's making a traditional roguelike at all.

"As much as we love the genre, we feel like we're creating something that's almost new," Louden said. "It's really trying to create our own style of game. The hope is that people who discover Saros, they love it so much and they're like, 'What else is there like this?' It's like, 'Well, it's Returnal.' And then you can go into the genre and try all these other amazing games, but realistically there's a particular style of game that we're making, which we really believe in."

Though Housemarque may be trying to chart new territory in a familiar genre, the studio hasn’t forgotten its roots along the way. There’s no way it could, according to Louden. While Saros is a cinematic affair that looks nothing like Resogun, the studio’s 2013 cult shoot-’em-up, its DNA is still very much present, if you trace a line through every Housemarque game.

"Saros still has this sort of arcade spirit," Louden said. "We put so much attention and detail into our sound and our music, which is true of Resogun and the sound of the overdrive. We actually have overdrive in Saros as well. That was intentional. Our number-one reference for Housemarque games is our own games. Returnal was the reference for this game. And for Returnal, the top reference was Nex Machina. We're always looking back, and then we're looking forward to innovate."

"All the VFX you see in Saros is actually proprietary. It's the same stuff we've been building since Resogun. It's just part of our history. The voxels turned into tentacles," Louden said.

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