Housemarque says it 'hancrafted levels, art, design, and combat encounters' and 'kind of connect them in a procedural matter' to create Saros' ever-changing levels

• Saros features "handcrafted" levels that were built "in a procedural matter"
• Levels will alter in appearance every time players respawn
• Art director Simone Silvestri says the team play-tested the game a lot to ensure "a really great flow across the experience"

Housemarque's Saros features handcrafted levels that will change every time you respawn, opening up new paths that lead to additional rewards.

In PlayStation Blog's hands-on preview for Saros, creative director Gregory Louden and art director Simone Silvestri discussed the game's core features at length, including the game's roguelike mechanics.

In Saros, when players die, they'll immediately respawn, but levels that have previously been explored will be physically and visually altered, meaning players will need to use their wits and the game's branching paths to explore their surroundings.

“We have handcrafted levels, handcrafted art, handcrafted design, handcrafted combat encounters, and then we kind of connect them in a procedural matter,” Silvestri explained.

While there is a literal golden path that leads directly to the main objective, players can also investigate levels filled with hidden side paths, which offer rewards that are guarded by puzzles and require fast reflexes or the correct tool to claim.

"We play our game a lot, and we keep playtesting to ensure that we have a really great flow across the experience."

While exploring, players can also discover long-lost colony camps that can be pieced together to find those Arjun, the playable protagonist, is out to rescue. Figuring out what happened to the colony is the primary objective, but unlike Returnal's solitary story, Saros will also feature other characters that play a part in the mystery.

"We immediately knew we wanted more viewpoints,” said Louden. Arjun's relationships with these characters build over the course of the game in a multitude of ways.

"It creates this pressure cooker of an experience, with multiple perspectives," the developer added.

We'll be able to play Saros when it launches on PlayStation 5 next month, on April 30.

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