Saros is a hard game, offering a high level of difficulty from the off: but there are ways to make the game a lot easier which are a little bit hidden when you’re starting out.
The thing is, Saros also follows the “FromSoft” style of storytelling in that while it shows plenty, a lot is left up to the player to decipher themselves. This also extends to the Saros difficulty level, which is set from the off, and isn’t something you can change. Due to this, there’s a chance a few players will bounce off and not want to continue, which is a shame because this is a stunner of a game, as you can read more about in our review.
There are a few steps you need to do in order to unlock what we’re dubbing “Saros easy mode”, which is, in many ways similar to adjusting sliders that change specific game option modifiers. In our guide, we’ll talk you through how to unlock the “Carcosan modifiers” section in the game. However, understand that it’s not available from the start, and you’ll have to do a few things to unlock it.
Saros difficulty guide: Head to the options menu
The first thing you’ll need to do is head into your options menu and look in the gameplay section for something called “Unlimited Protection Modifiers”. This is because the Carcosan Modifiers system is designed to be balanced. The idea is that you can add a modifier to make something easier, but you’ll have to change something else to make it harder, keeping the balance in the overall game. This option let’s you disable that balance, and you can just entirely stack easy modifiers, or if you prefer, hard ones to make the game harder.
How to unlock the Carcosan modifiers menu
This is important: after a few runs you will unlock “Primary”, which is where you can use your Lumenite to unlock nodes on the Armour Matrix. Essentially you will need to grind at the game until you unlock the first boss, called Prophet. You can face this boss, but we’d suggest you do not beat it. This can actually cause the Carcosan Modifiers system to not unlock until much later, and you don’t want that, as the second biome in Saros is a huge step up, difficulty wise.
What you actually need to do is keep running this first biome until you have unlocked every node leading up to Prophet. What this does is essentially tell the game “I’ve maxed out everything up to this node I can’t get past, and I still need help”. Once you’ve unlocked every node, have one more run, and then die. Upon spawning back at the Passage, to to Primary again and you’ll unlock the Carcosan Modifiers menu.
Carcosan Modifiers explained
Once unlocked you will see the screen above, which we’ve adjusted to show just how easy you can make it, if you’re struggling. Protections are the “easy” modifiers, and “trials” are the hard mode ones. Normally you can only have a select few of each, and the number has to balance in the middle.
This is why the option in part one of our Saros difficulty guide is so important. Selecting this option lets you “break” the game’s balance and stack things in your favour, or against you if you want a harder option.
You may not notice either, but at the bottom of the screen you should see “Square button = adjust level”. There are certain modifiers, such as “damage enhancement” (which makes you more powerful) or Armour Enhancement (which makes you able to take more damage) that you can choose levels between 1 and 3 to really tailor Saros difficulty to your tastes.
We’ve experimented with the options available and the screen above presents an easier game without it being a cakewalk. But if you do still struggle you could adjust the level of Damage Enhancement even higher. The beauty of this system is that if you get better and feel it’s too easy, you can still adjust it back. Remember to hit Triangle to “lock in” your Carcosan Modifiers, and enjoy.
