Housemarque just dropped a huge free update for Saros that brings boss rush mode, New Game+, and a handful of additional game modifiers to all Saros owners.
Saros: Zenith Update Arrives October 19
Saros released earlier this year in April 2026 and delivered the highly-anticipated spiritual successor to Returnal. The game featured some similar mechanics, but a whole suite of new accessibility features and a unique system to make each run feel like it was worth the effort.
Saros players are pulled through the game by a unique mystery and narrative, but Housemarque is hoping to add some incentives to play through again even after the main story has been finished.
The Saros: Zenith update aims to add replayability for existing players who had already explored all of Carcosa, and make the game more accessible so even more people can discover the addictive, explosive, exhilarating bullet ballet gameplay that made Saros one of the highest rated action games of 2026.
One of the most unique additions is the Slow Game Speed mode. With this setting enabled, you can slow the game down to give yourself more time to react to hostile attack telegraphs, see the bullets as they fly towards you, and decide your response. The attacks remain the same, but you have a little more time to deal with them.
You have control over how much the game slows down, and can even choose if you want the setting to kick in automatically during combat, or if you want to manually toggle it on when things get hairy.
The new “Auto-fire” accessibility setting makes your weapon fire automatically when you are aiming at a hostile. We know that some players may find it difficult to hold a button down for extended periods of time, so we hope this will help. More broadly, it gives you one less button to worry about during combat, freeing up your brain cycles to hit that dash button at just the right time to avoid taking a hit. Importantly, however, this setting does not make reloading automatic. A perfect reload still requires a well-timed button press. Like our other features, this is designed to make the game more accessible, not remove opportunities for player skill expression.
Combined with the new Motion Sensor Aiming functionality and our existing button remapping settings, players now have many ways to customize how Saros controls.
Beyond these new accessibility features, the team has also greatly expanded the “Carcosan Modifier” system from Saros.
Using this system, players can apply various “Modifiers” to the world of Carcosa to tune the difficulty to their liking. Protection Modifiers alter the game in a way that makes it easier and more forgiving. Zenith brings 10 new Protection Modifiers, to give players having a difficult time even more ways of customizing their experience.
The New Game+ mode known as “Eclipse Layers” has also been introduced. After clearing Saros, mysterious new nodes will be added to the Armor Matrix back at Passage. These are the key to unlocking the gate to the next Eclipse Layer, a more intense version of the game with altered rules.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Saros and Housemarque news and updates.
Saros is available now exclusively on PS5.
The post Everything New in the Free Saros: Zenith Update appeared first on VICE.
