Saros is selling slower than its spiritual predecessor, Returnal, according to estimates.
Photo Credit: Sony/ Housemarque
Saros is a third-person bullet-hell shooter
Saros, the newest first-party title from Sony, released exclusively on PS5 on April 30. The third-person bullet-hell shooter has received critical acclaim and is among the highest rated games of the year so far. But it seems the action title has struggled in the sales department. Saros is estimated to have sold 300,000 copies in the two weeks since it launched, generating over $22 million in revenue.
The sales estimates come from market analytics firm Alinea Analytics. According to the company's estimates, Sony's first major exclusive of 2026 has been selling slow. Saros has surpassed 300,000 copies sold on PS5, generating over $22 million, as per the firm's estimates.
According to Alinea, a third of those were sold in the early access period — players who pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe edition of Saros received two-day early access to the game, starting April 28.
The firm also said that Saros was selling slower than its spiritual predecessor, Returnal, despite having the benefit of a much larger PS5 install base. Housemarque's new bullet-hell shooter, however, has sold more copies on PS5 than Bungie's Marathon, according to Alinea's estimates.
These figures are estimates and not official sales numbers, which Sony and Saros developer Housemarque have not revealed yet. Saros' reported development budget is $76 million, so if the estimates are close to being accurate, the game has a long way to go before it breaks even.
Saros, however, has been a critical success for Sony. The shooter has an overall score of 87 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, making it one of the highest rated games of the year so far.
It's also important to note that Saros, a tough-as-nails bullet-hell Roguelike shooter, remains a niche title, even though Housemarque has made it more accessible than Returnal.
Saros is also likely to stay a PS5 exclusive. Recent reports have claimed that Sony is backing away from its strategy of porting its first-party games to PC a year or more after launching them on PS5. Returnal, for instance, released exclusively on PS5 in 2021, before making its way to PC in 2023.
The PlayStation parent, however, will still launch multiplayer live-service games on PC. Marathon, the new extraction shooter from Bungie launched on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series S/X simultaneously in March.
Saros is a third-person shooter set on the fictional planet of Carcosa. The game stars Rahul Kohli as Arjun Devraj, a Soltari Enforcer investigating the ever-shifting planet while taking on its many threats.
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