Ducking, dodging, and yes, even diving headfirst, shields up, in Saros forms an essential part of its gameplay loop. However, the Eclipse is constantly looming, ready to raise the difficulty bar and make traveling Carcosa that much more challenging. Senior narrative designer Khalil Osaimi calls it one of the “most interesting characters of the game” while speaking to GamesRadar, since it’s essentially “always looming.”
“From a narrative perspective, I consider the Eclipse one of the most interesting characters of the game, because no matter if you’re on the surface or if you’re underground, that haunting presence is always looming. It’s not just to open up paths. It’s not just to change the visual direction. It’s the gameplay aspect of the corruption bullets [as well]. But, what is that corruption also doing to our character and the characters in the game?”
Triggered in a biome by interacting with a strange mass of hands, the Eclipse completely shifts a biome. Your surroundings become tinged in red; enemies lose control and unleash new attacks; and that feeling of unease is further elevated (with 3D audio really adding to the atmosphere).
However, its impact extends beyond just being cosmetic or narrative-based. Lead game designer Abebe Tinari talks about the challenge of making the Eclipse really feel like an “escalation,” which involved a lot of prototyping “With this kind of stuff, we try and make sure it has both a gameplay purpose and a narrative purpose. Our challenge as the enemy designers was, okay, it’s the Eclipse now, how do enemies change?
“For a long time, we were prototyping various ways of making enemies more difficult. You know, [increasing] health, more damage. But it didn’t really feel immediately like an escalation, which is what it had to be. The answer that we came to was the corrupted bullets. When you start the Eclipse, they’re shooting different bullets – that was the most immediately recognizable change we came to.”
These bullets will reduce your maximum health and cannot be absorbed, at least until you unlock an upgrade from the Soltari Primary. However, the Eclipse will manifest in other ways, like reactivating several enemies in the Ancient Depths’ factory, making for a tougher experience. There are more rewards, though, from increased Lucenite to Corrupted weapons and artifacts that can offer strong benefits (if you can build around the drawbacks).
Launching on April 30th, Saros has looked incredibly impressive thus far. Check out a full run on the first biome, Shattered Rise.
