Saros will launch for PlayStation 5 on March 20, 2026, publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Housemarque announced.
Here is an overview of the game, via Sony Interactive Entertainment:
This is a dream project, by a dream team. Please watch our gameplay first look below:
This gameplay is captured on PlayStation 5 at 60fps using Unreal Engine 5 and is still a work in progress, so expect tweaks, fixes, and upgrades when you’re playing Saros on PlayStation 5 or enhanced on your PlayStation 5 Pro in 2026.
For this extended gameplay reveal we wanted to establish the world and story and then focus purely on our deep 3rd person action, and how we take things to the next level with Saros.
The Shape-Shifting Planet of Carcosa
The events of Saros take place on Carcosa, a shape-shifting, hostile alien planet; one that changes on every death, and offers a wide variety of environments and enemies for you to encounter. In this gameplay first look, we see our protagonist Arjun Devraj (performed by Rahul Kohli) exploring the planet as a total eclipse nears. Along the way he finds Nitya Chandran (performed by Shunori Ramanthan), one of our ensemble cast, and a key character. The stunning environment Arjun explores is that of a lost ancient civilization fueled by the twisted enlightenment of the eclipse. This is just one of the biomes our amazing team on Saros are creating.
How Our Action Gameplay Has Evolved
For our first look at gameplay we wanted to show real and unedited action gameplay from Saros, and then layer by layer detail some of the new elements we have added on top of Returnal‘s award winning third-person action. Our goal with these new elements has been to add more depth to our gameplay by adding a wider variety of tools.
Arjun’s Soltari advanced combat suit allows him to dash, melee, jump, and more. At the start of every run you will select your loadout from a mix of Soltari human weaponry and Carcosan alien weaponry. In this video, Arjun is using the Soltari Phosphorous Shotgun to defend himself and melt the hostile machines housed in the lost ancient city. As you can see from our extended gameplay, you can expect spectacular bullet patterns from enemies, and brutal weapons to use which fuel the science-fiction power fantasy.
Weaponry and Abilities
Let’s talk about Arjun’s unique abilities. Firstly, we have the Soltari Shield, activated by holding R1. In Saros, you can run into the hostile projectiles, absorbing their energy to defend yourself. Once absorbed you can hit back hard with your Carcosan Power Weapon. This second unique ability allows you to charge up the weapon with energy harvested from hostile projectiles (by pulling the L2 adaptive trigger fully), then discharging this explosive energy at enemies with R2.
Power Weapons transform Arjun’s right arm into an eclipse-fuelled weapon, corrupting him in the process. This gives him an alternate, and customizable, way to deal devastating damage to hostiles.
Storytelling in Carcosa
We also wanted to highlight how we are expanding our storytelling in Saros. Along with grounded voice-over, stunning cinematics, haunting audio logs, and conversations with our ensemble cast of NPCs, there are also Soltari Holograms detailing what happened on Carcosa as you explore. If you choose to collect them, they are vital to discover what happened on this hostile planet. There’s also more surreal and mysterious storytelling sequences, but we will share more with you about these moments ahead…
The final element we highlight is the “Second Chance” ability. On death, Arjun has the ability—once discovered—to use eclipse corruption energy to rise back up on first death. This is one small part of the permanent-progression systems we have added in Saros, which will allow you to always come back stronger after each death. These systems include the ability to upgrade your Soltari advanced combat suit & abilities if you choose to do so.
We are super proud of how Saros plays, and cannot wait for you all to experience it. Saros has been built by a dream team of collaborators; for this PS Blog post we wanted to shout out all of our superb PlayStation Studio partners including XDEV, Nixxes, PlayStation Studios Creative Arts teams and many more.
Nixxes are working closely with Housemarque’s creative, gameplay, art, and production leadership on key elements of the art and gameplay in Saros. They have been an amazing collaborator, and you can see their stunning work in this gameplay first look.
After our award-winning collaboration on Returnal, PlayStation Studios Creative Arts are also back working with the team at Housemarque. The sound and music you hear in this reveal is the result of this continued collaboration, and we are building something exceptional together.
Last but not least, the dark-electronic meets drone-metal score featured in this gameplay showcase (and in our earlier cinematic announcement), was composed by the fantastic and two-time Grammy Award-winning Sam Slater. His past work includes collaborations on the acclaimed Chernobyl and Joker, as well as being part of the team behind the score for the cult film, Mandy.
Expect a deep dive into our musical score and Sam’s process as we get closer to launch. We set out to create a bold and innovative score unique in any medium today.
In the future we’ll be sharing more about our mysterious, monstrous, and moving story including our plot, ensemble cast of NPCs, and the lost off-world colony on Carcosa you will experience.
Watch the first gameplay footage below.