Review Roundup: Saros — What Critics Are Saying
Housemarque's Returnal follow-up has earned praise as a refinement of the formula, with a couple of notable dissenters. Here is the critical picture.
Up front: HotGameNews staff have not played Saros. This is a roundup of published reviews and aggregate scores, not our own hands-on review.
The scores. Saros, a PlayStation 5 exclusive from Housemarque and Sony Interactive Entertainment that launched April 30, 2026, holds a Metascore of 87 (“Generally Favorable”) from 139 critic reviews. That breaks down to 131 positive reviews, 8 mixed and none negative. Metacritic’s midyear list of 2026’s best-reviewed games ranks it eighth. Player reception is more divided, at 7.7 out of 10 from 1,103 ratings, with 15 percent negative.
What critics love. The through-line in the praise is that Saros keeps what worked in Returnal and fixes what did not. Per Metacritic’s excerpts, one reviewer said it “preserves the best elements of Returnal while improving on its weaker points,” while the Irish Independent gave it a perfect 100 and called it “a seat-of-the-pants thrill ride.” Metacritic’s summary describes a worthy successor with refinements to the roguelite formula. The dissent. Not every critic came away as impressed. Giant Bomb scored it 60, acknowledging it is “still a good game” but arguing the design choices left it “less than the sum of its parts.” On the player side, negative user reviews mostly take aim at narrative depth and difficulty, with some finding it a step down from Returnal.
Who it is for. If the review consensus is a guide, Saros is for players who want tense, high-skill action and are comfortable with roguelite structure. Reviewers frame it as a confident sequel rather than a reinvention, and the 94 percent positive rate among critics suggests few came away disappointed. The trade-off is the same one the studio’s earlier work carried: a game that asks a lot of you, and whose story and difficulty are polarizing for a portion of its audience.
The bottom line. An 87 from critics, no negative reviews, and a small handful of pointed dissents. It is one of 2026’s better-reviewed console exclusives, and the disagreement is mostly about how much the game asks of the player.
Scores reflect Metacritic at time of writing and can change.