2021 saw the release of Returnal, a visually arresting and narratively compelling sci-fi shooter with roguelite elements. Now, developers Housemarque are back with a more polished and approachable successor in Saros, which sheds some of the most hostile elements from Returnal in favour of permanent progression systems, fluid movement and refined gunplay. For our purposes though, Saros makes its mark as the rare Unreal Engine 5 game that doesn't look like the vast majority of its stablemates, with visual flair that stands alone amongst modern releases. How does the game hold up on each PS5 console, and how have Housemarque progressed their graphics technology?
The most immediate and striking visual element has to be the bespoke particle system, which produces gigantic blasts of colourful VFX during combat. Enemy projectiles must be dodged, while defeated foes spectacularly dissolve into three-dimensional, voxel-like silhouettes of fiery dust. Player weaponry also creates different types of particles in the environment, with the shotgun producing physicalised sparks and a souped-up assault rifle producing homing projectiles.
Thankfully, the sheer volume of particles is carefully managed, with the developers taking a clear interest in not overwhelming the player. Environments and enemies are smartly rendered in more muted hues, which makes it easier to pick up on the colour-coded and gameplay-critical projectiles - which can even be hue-shifted via the settings menu for accessibility. There are some impressive fluid simulations too, like the teleportation media in the hub area which sees particles swirl in three-dimensional space based on player movement - a nice touch.
These complex systems stem from Housemarque's tradition of developing bespoke particle technology, which survived the transition from in-house engines to the industry standard UE4 for Matterfall, and has become the company's visual signature for ninth generation consoles. It's not something that you can easily replicate with standard Unreal tools, especially in the sheer volume used here.
The game's environments feature desolate biomes in various flavours, presenting an interesting visual contrast between futuristic machine civilisations and the ruins of ancient stone structures. The starting biome, for instance, consists of imposing stone buildings overgrown with reddish foliage and mosses, while later sections include dense underground networks, full of cables and platforms.
Shadows don't appear to be VSM-based, with obvious low-res artefacts, while shadows cast by distant environmental features are precalculated and blend poorly with the shadow maps. The global illumination and geometry execution diverge from modern high-budget UE5 standards too, though unless you're particularly intolerant of pop-in, eschewing Lumen RT and Nanite geometry seems like a worthy trade-off given the game's 60fps focus.
Saros maintains randomised elements common to the genre, but moves away from Returnal's method of building levels out of pre-fabricated rooms separated by view-obscuring doorways. Instead, gameplay spaces are more open, and their layouts appear more fixed, suggesting a more conservative variation of the Returnal system or indeed a fully traditional approach. Load times, thankfully, are close to instant, substituting the traditional loading screen with a brief white flash, so moving between areas is the work of a moment.
On PS5 Pro, Saros truly excels, with a single 60fps mode that targets a 4K output with PSSR upscaling. This solution is exceptional because it handles the complex and demanding particle effects remarkably well, keeping them stable and acceptably sharp, a feat many temporal upscalers struggle with. The internal resolution of 1440p produces pristine image quality, and frame-rates are consistent with only minor drops during some sequences. Note that real-time cutscenes can drop to 30fps, while pre-rendered videos are encoded at 24fps, presenting a bit of a mismatch.
The base PS5 version, while perfectly acceptable, takes an understandable hit to image quality with a ~1224p internal resolution. With no PSSR available on the amateur PS5, the game seems to rely on AMD's FSR 2 or FSR 3 for upscaling, resulting in a soft image that can flicker and break up in motion. Most critically, FSR is actually a fairly poor handler of particle effects here, which disrupts the game's key visual identity and makes complex combat scenarios look worse than they should. Performance is good, but not quite as watertight as the PS5 Pro release, with dips below 60fps possible in some intense combat scenarios.
Ultimately, Housemarque and Sony have delivered another high-quality single-player experience with Saros. It retains the essential charm of Returnal, while removing some of the most punishing elements and improving the speed and fluidity of combat compared to its predecessor. The technical implementation is standout too, with a smart balance between image quality, visual features and performance in its single mode, and some of the most impressive particle effects in gaming. It looks best on PlayStation 5 Pro, but even on the slightly compromised PS5 version it's still well worth a try.