Saros, the PS5 action game from Housemarque, received its free Zenith update on October 19. It adds a New Game+ mode called Eclipse Layers, slower game speed and auto-fire settings, and a leaderboard mode built around the game's Overlord bosses.
Abebe Tinari, Housemarque's design lead for Zenith, says the studio wanted the update to give existing players a reason to return and to make the game easier for newcomers to start. Slow Game Speed leaves enemy attacks unchanged but gives players more time to read telegraphs and bullets, with a slider for how far the game slows and a choice between automatic activation in combat or a manual toggle. Auto-fire shoots whenever the player aims at a hostile, but reloading stays manual, so a perfect reload still needs a well-timed press. Motion Sensor Aiming joins the existing button remapping.
The Carcosan Modifier system, which lets Saros players tune difficulty, gains 20 entries: 10 Protection Modifiers that make the game more forgiving and 10 Trial Modifiers that raise the challenge. Corruption Melee Enhancement is one of the Protections. Instead of only eating away at the player's maximum Integrity, built-up Corruption is spent on a melee hit for extra damage. The Trial called Hostile Regeneration lets weapons stun larger enemies, which then recover quickly unless a melee strike finishes them.
Those Trials feed Eclipse Layers. After the credits roll in Saros, new nodes appear in the Armor Matrix at Passage and unlock a harder version of the game with altered rules. Each layer starts with a loadout screen where the player must reach a Carcosan Modifier threshold, which takes several Trial Modifiers, picked from 25 Trials. During Eclipse Layers, protagonist Arjun wears a Crown that grows as the Modifier Balance rises, and his armor glows gold. Higher Crown levels let players read more text on 12 murals and messages called Visions, scattered across Carcosa.
Overlord Rush, per Housemarque, is reached through the Primary Unit in Passage and asks players to defeat Overlords from the main game as fast as possible. The mode is split into sets:
| Set | Overlords | Can be finished in |
|---|---|---|
| Incursion | 3 | 10 minutes |
| Ascension | 3 | 10 minutes |
| Totality (final set) | All 8 | Not stated |
Scores go to a leaderboard that can be filtered by main weapon, so a player outside the overall top ranks can still chase the best result with a favorite gun. Leaderboards need an internet connection and a PlayStation account. Zenith is free for existing owners, and Sony sells Saros for PS5 only, with PS5 Pro enhancements.
