Saros is off to a slower start than Returnal, with some analysts concerned Housemarque "will struggle to break even"

Saros' reviews are on the generally favourable side - Eurogamer awarded Saros four stars - and a smoother difficulty curve has made it more approachable than Returnal, yet its launch hasn't been quite as successful as Housemarque's previous game.

Alinea Analytics' head of market analysis Rhys Elliott shared an in-depth look at Saros' launch, highlighting that the game has already sold 300K copies and generated more than $22m in revenue. A third of those sales are from the 48-hour early access period for deluxe edition owners, meaning Housemarque's figures could be front-loaded; Elliott theorised the "superfans" could be boosting its debut performance.

Though specific numbers for Returnal during its launch period weren't shared, Elliott stated that Saros is selling "a little slower" than Housemarque's previous game, despite selling to a larger PlayStation 5 installed base. There are approximately 93m with a PS5 now whereas when Returnal launched in 2021, the installed base was approximately 8m. "Those early PS5 adopters (the ones who inherently buy a lot of new games at full price) were dying for something to play," Elliott suggested.

Elliott's data points to other recent successful PS5 launches, such as Crimson Desert and Resident Evil Requiem, as having stolen some of Saros' thunder, and Elliott also remarked that the game is "competing with the whole cumulative backlog of PlayStation releases".

The upside, however, is that Housemarque's work on removing friction from the game's cyclical loop has had a tangible effect on player engagement. Saros has double the completion rate (20 percent) of Returnal, apparently, and gained a consistently high number of daily players. "Saros launched with around 43K daily players on its early-access day (29th April), then jumped to 83K on its full-launch day (30th April), and peaked at almost 142K on 2nd May," Eliott noted.

"This slow start suggests it will struggle to break even, given the reported $76m development budget," the analysis concluded. Of course, Returnal's long-term performance on PC (Steam) suggests a potential solution to Saros' performance, should Sony choose to roll back its decision to return to making console exclusives.