Games Like Saros: 8 Roguelikes After Housemarque's Latest

Saros launched April 30 on PS5. Housemarque made another demanding roguelike with bullet-hell patterns and a death loop that actually matters. Here are eight games for when you run out of things to kill in it.

Returnal

The most obvious pick. Same studio, same third-person bullet-hell chassis, but the weapons are more varied and the mystery-box narrative is denser. It's on PS5 and PC. Death in Returnal resets more — you lose more progress on each run than Saros tends to strip from you. If you haven't played Returnal, do that first. Saros is the more polished version of the formula, but Returnal is where Housemarque worked out what they were making.

Hades

Supergiant's 2020 roguelike. Isometric, not a shooter, but the roguelike death mechanic and permanent-progression systems are the template a lot of modern games in this genre borrowed from, consciously or not. Every death adds dialogue and moves the story forward. The storytelling loop — die, learn something, try again — is tighter here than almost anywhere else. Available on PC, Switch, PS4, and PS5.

Dead Cells

Motion Twin's roguelike Metroidvania, originally released 2018. It's 2D and faster than Saros, with no bullet-hell element to speak of, but the combat feedback and the way builds come together from run to run are the closest thing to Saros's weapon system you'll find in 2D. One bad room can end a run, same as Saros. On PC and all major consoles.

Risk of Rain 2

A 3D third-person roguelike at a similar camera angle to Saros. Runs start slow and controlled, then spiral into complete chaos as items stack on items. Solo or co-op up to four players. The pacing is different — Saros stays punishing throughout, while Risk of Rain 2 lets you feel powerful before it kills you — but the loop of "die, retry, push further" is the same. On PC and consoles.

Curse of the Dead Gods

An isometric action roguelike with a corruption system that punishes greed. Slower than Saros, more deliberate. The eldritch-horror setting overlaps with Saros's aesthetic, and the corruption mechanic creates the same "how deep do I push before this kills me" tension. You can take cursed boons for power at the cost of mounting penalties — it's a different mechanic than Saros's absorb-and-charge shield, but the risk calculation feels familiar. On PC and consoles.

Neon White

Completely different aesthetic but it shares Saros's demand for clean, fast execution. Card-based first-person speedrunner with a visual novel story between levels. Runs are short, the precision ceiling is high, and there's more story than the premise suggests. It won't scratch the bullet-hell itch, but if what you liked about Saros was the discipline it asked of you, Neon White asks for the same thing in a very different way. On PC and Switch.

Ghostrunner

First-person cyberpunk action. You die in one hit and respawn instantly at the last checkpoint. The one-hit-kill loop creates the same pressure as Saros's demanding pace — you're always one mistake from starting over, and the game expects you to learn enemy patterns through failure rather than survive them. Less about build variety, more about movement and reaction. On PC and consoles.

KUTO: The Lock of Time

This one is our game, so take that for what it's worth. KUTO: The Lock of Time is an upcoming time-bending Metroidvania built around five time powers: Recall (rewind a few seconds), Dilation (slow-motion), Leap (time-dash), Fracture (break gravity), and Stillness (stop time). The death loop is similar to Saros — dying drops your Chronal Dust in a Temporal Remnant, a ghost of your last run that you have to beat to recover it. Different setting and tone, but the same idea that death should cost you something and ask you to earn it back. On PC, currently in development.

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Most of these are available now on PC or console. KUTO is the one worth wishlisting if you want a time-powers spin on the Saros formula.