Saros: Zenith Update Out Now With Boss Rush, New Game+

Housemarque says it had two goals with the free Saros: Zenith update: give players who have already finished Saros a reason to keep going, and make the game easier for newcomers without toning down the projectile-heavy combat that defines it. The accessibility side starts with Slow Game Speed, which slows the whole game down to give you more time to read attack telegraphs and decide whether to jump, dash, shield, or parry, while leaving the attacks themselves unchanged. Players control how much the game slows and can have it kick in automatically during combat or toggle it manually.

Auto-fire is another new accessibility setting, firing your weapon automatically whenever you’re aiming at a hostile, which Housemarque says is meant for players who have trouble holding a button down for long stretches. Reloading isn’t automated, though, so a perfect reload still takes a well-timed press. Motion Sensor Aiming also joins the existing button remapping options, while High Contrast Display lets players highlight Arjun and enemies with solid colors or outlines to make them easier to see.

On the modifier side, Zenith adds 10 new Protection Modifiers that make the game more forgiving and 10 new Trial Modifiers that make it harder. Design lead Abebe Tinari highlighted Corruption Melee Enhancement, which consumes built-up Corruption to deal additional melee damage without removing the risk to your max Integrity, and Hostile Regeneration, which lets larger enemies recover from being stunned by gunfire unless you finish them off with a melee strike. Defeating enemies with Carcosan Modifiers equipped now also earns Mastery for those modifiers, eventually marking them as Mastered.

In my Saros review, I said the Carcosan Modifier system was a smarter approach than traditional difficulty presets, and that complaints about players leaning on the easier modifiers missed the point. I also admitted that the first three or four hours frustrated me before the shielding and dodging finally clicked, and Slow Game Speed is the answer from Housemarque for players who are still getting there. I called Saros one of my favorite games of 2026 in that review, even though I never managed to get into Returnal.

For players who have already finished the game, Eclipse Layers is the New Game+ mode, unlocked through new nodes that appear in the Armor Matrix back at Passage after clearing Saros. Each layer offers a more challenging version of the game with altered rules. Before starting a run, you have to select a loadout of Carcosan Modifiers that meets a required threshold, which means taking on multiple Trial Modifiers from a pool of 25.

Starting in Eclipse Layer 2, Arjun wears a Crown, and his Armor glows gold. The Crown grows more elaborate as you take on more Trials and increase your Modifier Balance, with higher Crown levels required to uncover additional story text from the 12 Visions, a new set of stone-etched collectibles scattered across Carcosa. The update also adds six new trophies.

Overlord Rush rounds things out as the boss rush mode, accessed through the Primary Unit in Passage, where you race to take down the main game’s Overlords against a global leaderboard. The Incursion and Ascension Sets each feature three Overlords and can be completed in around 10 minutes, while the Totality Set runs all eight Overlords from across Carcosa in one continuous gauntlet. Leaderboards can be filtered by Main Weapon, so even players who can’t crack the overall top 10 have a shot at topping the chart for their preferred weapon, according to Tinari’s rundown on the PlayStation Blog.

Saros – Zenith Launch Trailer