Saros' Biggest Update Yet Officially Gets Release Date and Full Details

The bullet-hell roguelike Saros is getting its first major update. Saros: Zenith brings a host of new features and modes intended to make the game more accessible to newcomers while giving veterans more to do. Best of all, it’s free, and it’s out today.

For newcomers, Saros is adding several accessibility features to help those intimidated by the game. The biggest change is a new setting called “Slow Game Speed,” which lets players adjust the speed of enemy bullet patterns. You can control how much the game slows down and set this effect to a manual toggle or have it happen automatically when projectiles are incoming. In the PlayStation Blog post announcing the news, developer Housemarque explains that the studio has put a lot of thought into balancing features that make the game easier against the game’s core identity. This bullet-time style feature is the result.

Another major accessibility change is the addition of “Auto-fire.” This setting makes your character automatically fire at enemies you’re aiming at, making it easier to focus on dodging hails of bullets. The studio notes that players still need to reload manually, and that perfect reloads still require a well-timed button press. Both changes seem aimed at making the game slightly less chaotic for those who are overwhelmed, since it often doesn’t take long before the screen is full of aliens firing blue and red projectiles.

What’s being added for those who've already played Saros?

For those who’ve already conquered Carcosa’s King in Yellow, Zenith adds Overlord Rush, a boss rush mode that lets you battle each of the main game’s powerful Overlords for a spot on the leaderboard. There are three different sets of big bads available. The “Incursion” and “Ascension” sets each contain three Overlords, while the last set, “Totality,” has the player battle all eight bosses in a row.

Another major upgrade for veteran players is the addition of new Carcosan Modifiers. For those unfamiliar, these are optional toggles that make the game easier (Protection Modifiers) or more difficult (Trial Modifiers) — you can only add so many of the Protection Modifiers before being forced to counterbalance these with Trials.

The Zenith update brings 10 new Protection Modifiers and 10 Trial Modifiers. As for new Protections, one example is “Corruption Melee Enhancement,” which expels Corruption to grant a damage boost on close-range strikes.

These new modifiers tie into the added New Game Plus mode, which is called Eclipse Layers. After clearing the game for the first time, new nodes will be added to the Armor Matrix in the Passage (the hub area). Unlocking these lets the player pass through a gate to the next Eclipse Layer, which requires more Carcosan Modifiers to proceed. In Eclipse Layers mode, Arjun wears a crown and golden armor, with his crown growing larger as you add more modifiers. A higher-level crown grants access to hidden messages scattered throughout the world.

How has Saros been received?

Housemarque’s latest game received general critical praise, with many reviewers highlighting its imaginative, weird, fiction-inspired visuals and tight bullet-hell gameplay, even if many felt the game's easier difficulty compared to Returnal was an overcorrection. Sales-wise, the game seems to be off to a slow start. According to Alinea Analytics, this PS5 exclusive sold only 300,000 copies in its first two weeks. Housemarque co-founder and managing director Ilari Kuittinen retired from the company shortly after the game’s release. Hopefully, the Zenith update will give Saros the attention it deserves.