Sony’s PlayStation debuted “Saros,” its latest splashy AAA title for the PS5, this week to overwhelmingly positive reviews. But while critics have had advance time with single-player action game, players just diving in this weekend after the title’s Thursday release have an uphill battle ahead of them as they take on the bullet-hell environment that developer Housemarque counts as its speciality.
Described as a spiritual successor to the PlayStation-owned Housemarque’s 2021 third-person shooter “Returnal,” “Saros” follows Arjun Devraj (played by “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “Midnight Mass” star Rahul Kohli) as a Soltari enforcer who will stop at nothing to pursue answers on the shape-shifting world of Carcosa, a planet filled with dark secrets and hostile inhabitants.
Kohli, a self-professed hardcore gamer who eventually completed “Returnal” after multiple attempts when the game first debuted, said yes to the request to lead the cast of “Saros” as soon as he was asked back in 2023. However, Kohli says he ended up wanting to re-do his vocal performance once he had it all in the can.
“They had approached me based off my work on ‘Midnight Mass,’ and things like that,” Kohli told Variety. “So when a game approaches you for that, you’re like, oh, OK, let me bring a more grounded screen performance to what you’re doing. So that was the foundation that I started with: I’ll just play these cut scenes for real, and I’ll treat it exactly how I would approach a film or a TV show. And then I played it, and I’d been playing it for a while, and actually start to think I had made a mistake. I felt that I had unintentionally ignored the genre and why people are here. People do obviously always want compelling characters and strong narratives, but when you’re a Housemarque fan, you’re here for bullet hell, you’re here for an arcade shooter. And I felt that there was a disconnect. Every time I heard my character speak, it just felt like it didn’t belong.”
Kohli says he approached Housemarque creative director Gregory Louden with the idea and “ended up re-recording almost every line of dialogue and fine tuning it.”
“I said, I think I want to sound more like the world. I think I want to redo this and take a second pass at it,” Kohli said. “And with their blessing, that’s the adjustment I made, which was, remember the genre, remember what people are doing, remember how it’s the power fantasy about coming back stronger, and how the weapons sound, and what [composer] Sam Slater is doing with the music. So I actually gruffed it up more, delivered a more kind of action-y performance that then slipped in nicely, because my ultimate goal with approaching this game and leading this game was I did not want to distract, I wanted to disappear.”
Louden added: “I think it makes it even better for the player. And that was the goal, to be a sort of science-fiction world you get lost in and having great performance. I think in all great science-fiction screen work, you really connect with the world and you feel immersed when the performances feel really real. And I think that’s what the pickup session did.”
Aside from enjoying Kohli’s voice and motion-capture performance throughout the game’s cut scenes, Louden says “Saros” players can look forward to a story that is inspired by “Returnal” — but to what extent he can’t reveal just yet.
“Our goal is to build something mysterious and haunting,” Louden said. “So it’s actually something that’s better discovered by players. So I don’t want to spoil any of the game for them, but I recommend they look into it. I wish I could answer, but I think it’s better I don’t, so players can get lost in it.”
As for how to get through the challenging title, Louden has a few gameplay tips before you get started.
“I’d say the biggest thing with ‘Saros’ is be curious,” Louden said. “I think there’s a lot of mystery in the game, so I recommend you dig into the story. It’s a surface level of the story, but there’s deep mystery if you really want to go below the surface. In terms of gameplay, I would say chase the Lucenite. So Lucenite is the resource that companies come to Carcosa for; it’s what you need, as well, to come back stronger. So in a lot of ways, it feels like it’s quite far away, but it’s worth the risk. ‘Saros’ is really about almost running into the danger, and I think if you do that, you’ll succeed. If you run away, Carcosa will get you. So you need to challenge yourself and push forward, just like Arjun in the game.”
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