与Gregory Louden聊SAROS: Zenith及澳洲游戏行业

Last week, during his visit to Melbourne for Melbourne International Games Week and PAX 2026, we got a chance to sit down once again with Aussie’s own Gregory Louden to talk about SAROS. More specifically, the game’s Zenith expansion, which is launching free for players this year.

During the chat, we got to speak about the update and what it’s delivering to SAROS fans, his journey from film to video games, and the state of the Australian games industry.

So, obviously we’re here to chat about Zenith specifically. But first, congratulations on the success of SAROS. I personally loved it, and it’s obviously exciting that this first expansion is going to be free for players. It’s obviously a bit of a minefield out there, but are we still on track for 2026? 

Correct, yes, SAROS: Zenith is coming later this year. I’m super hyped for players to jump in. I was just playing it in Helsinki, and it’s super fun. Overlord Rush is great. Eclipse Layers, more modifiers, more accessibility features. So yeah, I’m really hoping we can get it out this year. 

So obviously with that in mind, I already found it to be a fairly replayable game, but I feel like this is giving more reasons for players to come back again—stronger even. Of the suite of modes, which was conceived first? 

Yeah, good question. So, with Zenith, when we were reflecting on what we wanted to do, we wanted to have like two big goals: even more replayability, and then accessibility. So, I’d say it was kind of like an equal front. But the thing that the team were really hyped to do immediately was the idea of an Overlord Rush, or a boss rush. How could we do this the “Housemarque way”? 

How could we do something that is really fun, fast, kind of fluid, and lives up to the rush name? I think you’re gonna be super hyped when you play it. I think the element that I love as well is that you can play Saros, and you don’t really have the asynchronous sort of competition. You don’t know how you compare to others. But with Overlord Rush, now there’s the leaderboard, and you can see. So, it’s even been fun with just the devs to see the scores and race each other to try to get better and better and fewer hits. 

So is that the main reason why you’ve opted for a boss rush versus, say, something like the endless mode from Returnal, Tower of Sisyphus?

Yeah, for us, we wanted to do something new. Like, we have, like, a team working on Zenith, and the goal was “how can we provide a new experience to play?” 

So, immediately it was like Overlord Rush; we also wanted to do a new game plus mode, hence Eclipse Layers. We just wanted to do a new experience for players rather than repeat ourselves. 

The accessibility features you speak of, such as the option to slow the game down. I feel like that’s going to be great for players who might struggle or who might need something more to complement the modifiers. I don’t know if you pay attention to things online, but there’s a vocal minority online who bemoan making games “easier.” 

“Returnal’s better because it’s harder” and all this sort of stuff. Have telemetrics shown that, you know, players do tend to lean on modifiers, leading to the want to include more accessibility features?

With SAROS, the thing that we realised was, no matter what we did, we just wanted to create the best experience for people. In the end, the way that we can do that is actually allow them to make the game as tough as they wanted to be, or even tougher, or actually make it more approachable. 

It was just us continuing that philosophy. So, it made sense when we had a content update that we should just add even more. We have some pretty wild things that make SAROS even more challenging; we have something that actually resets your progression in the armour matrix when you die. They have one-hit kills, so if you want the even more hardcore experience, you can have it. 

But if you want a more approachable experience, you can have that too. And rather than us saying what it is, we’re giving players these tools. Yeah, it’s been really encouraging. Plenty of people maybe couldn’t get as far in Returnal as they wanted. 

Introducing a dedicated new game plus mode is another great way to bring players back into the fold. I’ve read that it obviously promises new secrets and surprises. Obviously, we won’t touch on what they are, but can players expect perhaps new story content?

Yes, they can. So it’s going to be, I think the thing that’s really exciting was we wanted to put a Housemarque twist on NG+, hence these Eclipse Layers. 

Basically, when you go through the Eclipse Layers, you actually choose your experience. So, using these new modifiers, you actually stack the modifiers to start the experience. And then as you continue through, you’ll actually begin to find what we call ‘Visions of a King.’ You’re going to find these kinds of elaborate stories that are both visual and text that basically go through and provide even more mystery into Carcosa through the views of another King. 

You can’t just finish it once; you need to finish it multiple times to get the full story. 

I love that. Is QSSR something that you’d be looking into for Saros? 

So, we’re super excited, but we have nothing to announce about. 

You’re delivering what I imagine is a much-requested feature in gyro-aiming for players. How close was something like co-op to getting across the line for SAROS: Zenith? 

So, I think our team’s done an incredible job. They actually have people on the team that are hardcore into motion sensor play. So, I think the implementation we’ve done is really innovative. I’m sitting at the office, and I’m seeing people do stuff with a controller that’s just amazing—particularly railgun shots and stuff. It’s just out of control. 

But, for us, once again, we just wanted to kind of focus on creating a new experience.

So what else can we expect from the new expansion? Any new suits for Devraj or other things like that? 

One of the exciting things we have in Zenith is that, as you go through the Eclipse Layers, and you may have seen it on the cover art, it looks as though Arjun is beginning to transform. As you go through the Eclipse Layers and you escalate the challenge, Arjun’s armour will begin to add things; you’ll get a crown, and you’ll be able to continue forward. 

So, that’s a new element that actually scales across all of them. 

That’s tough. One thing we didn’t really talk about last time we spoke was your journey into video games and what led you from film to this? As a bit of an aside, my family and I were on holiday in Hawaii earlier this year and, after our day got rained out, we just sat in our hotel and watched the Owls of Ga’Hoole. 

Oh! Great! 

Which you obviously worked on. How does one go from that to leading the production on a massive AAA PlayStation game? 

Yeah, I’d say, for starters, obviously a lot of work and a lot of tenacity. I had to kind of go through a lot of different layers. And I’d also say I’ve been really lucky that people have given me opportunities to grow and learn. 

I’ve always had to work my way to go forwards, but I’d say even from the start of my career, I started in Sydney and I studied computer science, I was a programmer, and I reached the point where I did all the tools that they wanted, so they said: “Hey, now do you want to help with this?” So, I started to help with that, and that turned my career from programming to effect simulations. 

And then eventually, after doing enough effect simulations, I moved to animation, and I learned how to do that. It’s just been a constant journey of just learning and improving myself and, through that, broadening myself. So, by the time I had finished working in visual effects and worked on movies like Legend of the Guardians, Gravity, Prometheus, and World War Z, I felt I was ready for a new challenge.

So I joined games, and I originally started as a visual effects level designer. So I was doing effect simulations and level design, but people could see that I liked doing stories, and this was at Remedy, so then they let me start doing narrative design. So, I worked on all the stories across Quantum Break. And then, from there, because of that experience, Housemarque. When they wanted to create a bigger game, they realised, “Hey, you have story experience. You want to come to Housemarque?” Then I got to learn about them, their ‘gameplay first’ and the arcade sensibilities, the ultimate focus on the control and the player and gameplay.

I guess I managed to be in a position where, when the opportunity arose, they said: “Greg, we trust you to be a Creative Director,” and here I am. It’s been a journey, but  I’ve, in a lot of ways, just been given great opportunities and actually haven’t said no when people asked if I wanted to learn animation, then storytelling. 

“Let’s do it all,” he says.

Exactly. Work hard and, eventually, get to be where you are. Yeah, I’ve reflected, and it’s been almost twenty years to get from Sydney to where I am today. So yeah, it’s been awesome. It’s awesome, yeah. 

Your resume clearly speaks for itself. How does it feel to be, you know, lauded as a headlining gaming icon at a PAX in your own country? 

It’s amazing. It’s really humbling. I was chatting to someone earlier and saying that it’s really humbling and special. It’s been a really amazing trip. To think that I’ve built my career in Europe, but to come here in Australia and people actually are excited? It’s a dream. It’s been really cool. 

I think SAROS has been a dream project; I got to work with a dream team, and this trip feels a bit like a victory lap in a sense. I feel like we built one of the most creative, boldest games of 2026 that really stands out. So, to come home to Australia and have people view it that way means a lot. 

Perhaps it’s all in the timing, but is Zenith launching nearer the end of the year so that SAROS is front of mind again as we near award season? Obviously recency bias is a thing.

I’d say number one for us is about the players. We wanted to get as much to the players as quickly as we could. So, in the end, we obviously shipped the game in April, then we took a good bit of time off. 

Naturally, this just felt like the right time to release it this year so that way, people can jump in and play it. 

I look at the Australian games industry, and I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to catch things during Games Week or at PAX, but I see a game like Key Fairy and how unique and creative it is as this novel, bullet-hell pacifist game, and it just excites me. What excites you about the local games scene? 

Yeah, so actually, I did see Key Fairy, and I thought it was super cool. I was at the AGDAs, and I saw the Mixtape team win. One of their animators worked with me on Stone; it was great to visit and catch up with them. But no, just really proud.

I’ve always been looking at Australia. I feel like, most mornings I would wake up and I knew the AGDAs were on, and I’d be reading in Helsinki about who won. To be in the crowd, and to see all the Australian creativity, and even just meeting other developers. I’ve never been to PAX, but in the elevator, there were a bunch of people dressed up. To see this side of gaming in Australia is great, because I feel when I moved to Europe back in 2011, it didn’t feel as present to me. 

I realised that I joined the world’s first global game jam representing Australia at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney; it felt like it was a different thing. I love Aussie games; I love Mixtape. Big Walk is amazing. I also love trying to put Australian culture in games. I was really hyped to put Ben (Prendergast) in SAROS to play Jerome. 

I can’t wait to walk around PAX.

Lastly, as a renowned storyteller and world builder, what excites you about your job as a creative? 

Yeah, I think the thing that excites me the most is I feel like there’s more we can do with video games as a medium, and I feel like my big goal with SAROS was to work with an amazing team to push the medium, but I feel like there’s more we can do. 

And I feel like the experience of building SAROS has taught me more, so that way the next game we can do better. 

I feel like I work in games because I want to work in the future of games.

I’m always trying to push further and trying to think of what the next thing we can do is; how can we push gameplay? How can we push the haptics? How can we push sound, music, art? Obviously, the storytelling. So for me, I feel like the best story hasn’t been told yet. I just want to keep trying to do better and better stories more and more and keep learning and improving so that way we keep pushing the medium so that more people experience games and love games. 

I’d love to think that if I came back again in twenty years, all of Melbourne would have games everywhere, not just the conference centre. I feel like it’s the ultimate entertainment medium and art form that I want to keep growing. So, that’s what pushes me.

Hell yeah.

SAROS: Zenith is expected to release for PlayStation 5 later this year. Click HERE to pick it up for $99 from Amazon.

The post We Spoke With Gregory Louden About SAROS: Zenith And The Aussie Games Industry appeared first on Press Start.