A little while ago, a Push Square poll asked readers which of Housemarque’s PS5 games they like best: Returnal or Saros?
Well, after thousands of votes across a series of questions, we have some answers, and they’re pretty interesting.
As a huge fan of both, I have to say it’s a very tough call between the two. I really love Returnal’s brutal challenge, and its oppressive atmosphere is hard to top. However, Saros brings that little bit extra with its gameplay, and I think overall it’s a little more fun to play.
Turning to the poll results, it seems the majority of our readers prefer Returnal to Saros overall. 43% of the votes said so, while 35% went with the more recent game.
The next question asked which game has the better overall gameplay, and interestingly, the results are sort of the opposite. 48% of voters said Saros trumps Returnal in this department, while 22% felt the other way.
I’d agree with this; Returnal plays wonderfully in its own right, but the additions and refinements Saros makes to the formula put it a step above for me.
With regards to the story, things swing back the other way. 50% of participants say that Returnal has the stronger story of the two games, and 23% favoured Saros’ narrative.
This is a tougher one to nail down; personally, I like how Saros retains some sense of mystery, but it makes its themes and story more overt than Returnal does, which is more up my street. However, there’s something about the more abstract nature of Returnal’s plot that sets it apart.
Still, it seems the majority prefer the earlier game’s story, and that’s fair enough. Similarly, voters prefer Selene as a main character to Arjun; it’s 66% versus 34%.
So, speaking very generally, it seems as though Returnal mostly comes out on top here, but Saros has the edge when it comes to gameplay.
It’s always interesting to see how these things shake out, but I think the main thing we can take away from this is that Housemarque is brilliant and makes brilliant games. Its two PS5 titles are sort of sibling pieces that complement each other very nicely, and really, you can’t go far wrong with either of them in my opinion — it largely depends on your tolerance for starting over from scratch.
