Players who have already conquered Carcosa or need an accessibility tweak or two have a reason to head back. Housemarque has released the SAROS: Zenith update, which is available now to all SAROS owners at no extra cost, adding a New Game+ mode, a boss rush mode and a range of new accessibility settings.
The biggest addition is Eclipse Layers, a New Game+ mode that unlocks once SAROS has been completed. After clearing the game, new nodes appear in the Armor Matrix at Passage, and these open the way to the next Eclipse Layer, a tougher version of the game with altered rules. Before starting each layer, players choose a loadout of Carcosan Modifiers and must reach a set threshold before they can begin. Meeting that threshold requires taking on several Trial Modifiers, with 25 Trials to choose from and some combinations working together to make things even harder.
Eclipse Layers also introduce a visual reward for taking on extra difficulty. Arjun wears a Crown during this mode, and his Armor glows gold. The more Trials players take on and the higher their Modifier Balance climbs, the larger the Crown becomes. The Crown is also tied to a new collectible called Visions. Twelve Visions are hidden across Carcosa as murals and messages carved into stone by an ancient king, and higher Crown levels are needed to read the additional story text they hold.
Zenith also adds Overlord Rush, a mode accessed from the Primary Unit in Passage in which players race to defeat the main game’s Overlords as quickly as possible. Results are posted to an integrated leaderboard, so players can compete with friends and others around the world, and scores can be filtered by Main Weapon. The mode is split into Sets. Incursion and Ascension each feature three Overlords and can be completed in around 10 minutes, while the final Set, Totality, pits players against all eight Overlords from across Carcosa in one continuous run.
The Carcosan Modifier system has been expanded in both directions. Ten new Protection Modifiers make the game more forgiving. One of these, Corruption Melee Enhancement, turns built-up Corruption into extra damage when a melee strike lands. On the other side, 10 new Trial Modifiers raise the challenge, including Hostile Regeneration, where larger enemies stunned by gunfire quickly recover unless they are finished off with a melee attack.
On the accessibility front, a new Slow Game Speed setting reduces the speed of the game without changing enemy attacks, giving players more time to react to incoming projectiles. Players can choose how much the game slows down, and whether the setting activates automatically during combat or is switched on manually. A new Auto-fire option fires the player’s weapon automatically when aiming at an enemy, although reloading still needs to be done manually. Motion Sensor Aiming has also been added, alongside new trophies.
