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I’ll freely admit: I’m not very good at Returnal. I consider myself a competent gamer generally when it comes to shooters, but Returnal kicked my ass. Repeatedly. I love so much about Housemarque‘s third-person shooter, but I must confess I just didn’t have the patience for the grind. I couldn’t deal with the stress of returning right back to the start when panic sets in during a butt-clenchingly tense boss fight. So, when Housemarque revealed their upcoming game, SAROS, has permanent progression, it was music to my ears. But balancing the progression system will be a challenge for the experienced developer. One I have no doubt it’s up for.
Break the Cycle (Or Player)
Returnal, released in 2021, featured the tagline “Break the cycle.” An enticing goal indeed. Sadly, while playing, I was closer to breaking myself than the game’s narrative loop system. To be clear, I’m not usually a gamer that plays action and shooter games on easy. I favor the “hard” difficulty if there are four or more difficulty levels, or “normal” if there are three. I consider myself competent, if not fantastic. But Returnal nearly drove me to the edge of insanity with its brutal, unrelenting difficulty. I admire players who have the patience to slowly improve, dying repeatedly until they’ve learned enemy patterns. But I just don’t have that patience.
Which is a shame, truth be told, because I adored so much of Returnal. The world design and environmental art was incredibly atmospheric. The creature design was similarly brilliant, with countless varied enemies all chomping at the bit to end you. And as a video game narrative designer myself, I hugely appreciated the narrative systems that subtly and gradually revealed the game’s story. If only I’d been able to survive long enough to experience more of it!
I give this context to explain why I’m so excited about Housemarque’s next game, revealed during Sony’s somewhat underwhelming State of Play. Specifically, I’m intrigued by SAROS‘ permanent progression system. Finally, I may be able to complete a Housemarque game!
In all seriousness, though, what really intrigues me is that Housemarque seem to be making SAROS‘ permanent progression a tentpole feature of the game. At least in its marketing, anyway. As Housemarque says, it’ll be “a key gameplay distinction between SAROS and Returnal.” And I’m here for it.
Come Back Stronger
Whereas Returnal‘s tagline was “Break the cycle,” SAROS shifts the focus. “Come back stronger,” Housemarque declares. The simple three words are a clear indication of the developer’s shift in focus. With SAROS, it seems that the brutal, understandably divisive rogue-like permadeath system will be eschewed in favor of a more forgiving rogue-lite structure. In rogue-like games, you lose all progress when you die. In rogue-lite titles, some of these mechanics are in place, but you often carry something through to your next run.
On its website, Housemarque promises that every run in SAROS will result in “permanent resources and progression making every death valuable.” As it acknowledges, this is a significant change from Returnal. The main benefit of this more forgiving approach is obvious: less skilled players, like myself, can still progress in the game. Some determination will no doubt still be required, but the frustration should be minimized. It’s easier to stomach an abrupt death if you feel like you’ve made at least a modicum of progress.
As much as I appreciate this change in approach, however, that’s not to say it’s a fool-proof change. For one, it may frustrate the more hardcore players, who feel like the challenge is diminished. Housemarque could follow Supergiant’s Hades approach to mitigate this, by having optional debuffs to make the runs harder.
The other risk is that, if SAROS‘ permanent progression system isn’t very finely tuned, it may feel like all you have to do is keep dying until you’ve earned enough resources to make the game easy. Housemarque will need to carefully balance the challenge it’s renowned for with a sense of progression to strike the right chord. If there’s one developer I’d trust to achieve that, however, it’s the Finnish studio.
So, roll on 2026, I say. I’m ready to come back stronger.
