Story perspectives

Housemarque Debuts PS5 Roguelike Saros, Scores 3.5 Stars

5/2/2026

Summary

Housemarque Launches Saros

Housemarque launched Saros, a PlayStation 5 first-party third-person roguelike bullet-hell shooter.
Players control Arjun Devraj, voiced by Rahul Kohli, who investigates missing colonists on Carcosa and can upgrade stats with Lucenite and Halycon while using a Carcosan Modifiers tab for attack boosts or challenges.
Reviewers gave Saros 3½ out of 4 stars, praising its more forgiving structure that expands Returnal’s solo story with multiple characters and logs.

Summary

Rahul Kohli Mocap

Rahul Kohli performed his first motion-capture for Saros, also recording incidental animations usually done by specialists, and called it the purest acting.
Housemarque, the Helsinki studio Sony acquired after Returnal, aimed to make Saros more approachable, leading to the hiring of high-profile talent.
Kohli’s role reflects a growing shift of film and TV stars such as Aaron Paul and Charlie Cox into big-budget video games.

History

Historical Context

In 2009 Naughty Dog began developing The Last of Us, releasing it on PlayStation 3 on June 14 2013 under director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann. The game’s story-driven design and heavy use of motion capture—about 85 % of animations—set a new cinematic standard for PlayStation exclusives. Later PlayStation exclusives in 2024 adopted that approach.

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Housemarque Launches Saros

Housemarque launched Saros, a PlayStation 5 first-party third-person roguelike bullet-hell shooter.
Players control Arjun Devraj, voiced by Rahul Kohli, who investigates missing colonists on Carcosa and can upgrade stats with Lucenite and Halycon while using a Carcosan Modifiers tab for attack boosts or challenges.
Reviewers gave Saros 3½ out of 4 stars, praising its more forgiving structure that expands Returnal’s solo story with multiple characters and logs.

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