Saros, the upcoming third-person bullet hell shooter from Housemarque, gets a quick showing at the February 2026 State Of Play broadcast. The gameplay overview trailer explains the new features that are under the “come back stronger” umbrella.
While Housemarque’s PS5 launch game Returnal can be classified as a roguelike, Saros is more of a roguelite. Some may use this interchangeably, but Returnal had the balls of playing it straight as a “pure” roguelike where the only meta progression is the story—everything else in the run is random, with little to no way to influence future runs.
Saros meanwhile leans into the expected features of a modern roguelite with meta-progression, quality-of-life features, and ways to make you… come back stronger.
The Passage serves as the game’s hub where you can interact with any of the survivors in Echelon Four. Expect more character dialogue as a result, as hinted previously.
Saros’ permanent progression systems includes unlocks that permanently increase armour attributes and perks.
There are also Carcosan modifiers, buffs and nerfs that you can slot in to make a run harder, or easier, that also influences the toughness of enemies.
Saros also allows you to teleport to any biome you unlocked. So you don’t have to start from the literal starting biome every run.
You can also force an Eclipse to happen, which heavily alters the landscape of Carcosa. Not only will it look like burning hell on an alien planet, it also amps up the enemies with more ways to kill you (including projectiles that can drop your maximum armour, nasty). Weapons and artifacts you carry also becomes corrupted, which brings either positive or negative effects, so you can strategically call in an Eclipse, or be hampered by it.
If that’s not enough, the three minutes worth of new gameplay continues to showcase that trademark Housemarque arcade shooter feel that will remind you of Returnal. And Returnal had some of the best game feel for a third-person shooter out there.
Saros will be out on April 30 for the PS5.