PlayStation 5 Critic Reviews

Housemarque’s follow-up to Returnal takes what made the 2021 third-person “looper shooter” so acclaimed and twists it into a whole new cosmic horror bullet-fest that aims to surpass its predecessor. And from playing three hours myself, I think it's doing just that. [3-Hour Impressions]

My three hours of hands-on time with Saros have made it my most anticipated game of the year, easily. [3-Hour Impressions]

Saros may be Housemarque’s magnum opus. [3-Hour Impressions]

All in all, Saros is a challenging game. The game's first boss, Prophet, thrashed me a handful of times before I got the hang of it, and whenever I let my concentration slip, I was punished severely. [Hands-On Impressions]

With only three hours of hands-on time with SAROS, I can confidently say that Housemarque has another hit on its hands. [3-Hour Impressions]

From the opening few hours, Housemarque has absolutely nailed the tone it’s striving for. It’s a deeply uncomfortable and mysterious world to explore. There are very few moments of respite, and I was picking up as many pieces of lore and audio logs as I could. [Hands-On Impressions]

Returnal was our Game of the Year when it came out, and Saros has somehow managed to eclipse it. It’s telling a much bigger, more personal story, and I admire the team’s laser focus on removing the frustrating roadblocks and keeping players on a forward march. It feels like a natural, swaggering step forward from a team that is determined to keep the arcade fire burning. [Hands-On Impressions]

At times it reminded me of macropsia, a sensation of having distorted perceptions which, in turn, makes structures or objects feel impossibly large and extremely close. It is often accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of futility. While macropsia is linked to neurological conditions, it's the closest I've come to describing the experiences I had as a sickly child that repeatedly suffered from intense fevers. At their worst, those macropsia-like shifts in scale would make me feel small and helpless. While not quite as severe, the world of Saros at times also channeled the surreal quality of those symptoms. [3-Hour Hands-On Impressions]