Saros isn't Returnal 2, but this roguelike follow-up still takes the foundations introduced there as its primary point of inspiration. On the surface, the shared DNA is obvious, but just a few subtle changes mean that the deeper you get into Saros, the more different you realize it is – to the point where my hands-on with Saros didn't click until the game's first boss, Prophet, shook me hard enough to stop trying to play it like Returnal.
"It is a skill check, yeah," grins lead game designer Abebe Tinari when I relate that my hands were shaking by the time I eventually beat it. "We tried to really tailor that early experience, but not in the way of adding more text tutorials or making people read a bunch of long explanations. It was more – how can people organically discover these mechanics?" says Tinari. "With the very first mech enemy, here's this long line of bullets. What do you do with it? Well, you have to dodge it. Or, you could pop your shield and run into it."
