{"id":643490,"date":"2026-05-01T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643490\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:50:07","slug":"lucenite-tips-rahul-kohli-actor-returnal-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643490\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucenite Tips, Rahul Kohli Actor, Returnal Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSony\u2019s PlayStation<\/a> debuted \u201cSaros<\/a>,\u201d its latest splashy AAA title for the PS5, this week to overwhelmingly positive reviews. But while critics have had advance time with single-player action game, players just diving in this weekend after the title\u2019s Thursday release have an uphill battle ahead of them as they take on the bullet-hell environment that developer Housemarque counts as its speciality. <\/p>\n

\n\tDescribed as a spiritual successor to the PlayStation-owned Housemarque\u2019s 2021 third-person shooter \u201cReturnal,\u201d \u201cSaros\u201d follows Arjun Devraj (played by \u201cThe Haunting of Bly Manor\u201d and \u201cMidnight Mass\u201d star Rahul Kohli<\/a>) as a Soltari enforcer who will stop at nothing to pursue answers on the shape-shifting world of Carcosa, a planet filled with dark secrets and hostile inhabitants.<\/p>\n

\n\tKohli, a self-professed hardcore gamer who eventually completed \u201cReturnal\u201d after multiple attempts when the game first debuted, said yes to the request to lead the cast of \u201cSaros\u201d as soon as he was asked back in 2023. However, Kohli says he ended up wanting to re-do his vocal performance once he had it all in the can.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey had approached me based off my work on \u2018Midnight Mass,\u2019 and things like that,\u201d Kohli told Variety. \u201cSo when a game approaches you for that, you\u2019re like, oh, OK, let me bring a more grounded screen performance to what you\u2019re doing. So that was the foundation that I started with: I\u2019ll just play these cut scenes for real, and I\u2019ll treat it exactly how I would approach a film or a TV show. And then I played it, and I\u2019d been playing it for a while, and actually start to think I had made a mistake. I felt that I had unintentionally ignored the genre and why people are here. People do obviously always want compelling characters and strong narratives, but when you\u2019re a Housemarque fan, you\u2019re here for bullet hell, you\u2019re here for an arcade shooter. And I felt that there was a disconnect. Every time I heard my character speak, it just felt like it didn\u2019t belong.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tKohli says he approached Housemarque creative director Gregory Louden with the idea and \u201cended up re-recording almost every line of dialogue and fine tuning it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI said, I think I want to sound more like the world. I think I want to redo this and take a second pass at it,\u201d Kohli said. \u201cAnd with their blessing, that\u2019s the adjustment I made, which was, remember the genre, remember what people are doing, remember how it\u2019s the power fantasy about coming back stronger, and how the weapons sound, and what [composer] Sam Slater is doing with the music. So I actually gruffed it up more, delivered a more kind of action-y performance that then slipped in nicely, because my ultimate goal with approaching this game and leading this game was I did not want to distract, I wanted to disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLouden added: \u201cI think it makes it even better for the player. And that was the goal, to be a sort of science-fiction world you get lost in and having great performance. I think in all great science-fiction screen work, you really connect with the world and you feel immersed when the performances feel really real. And I think that\u2019s what the pickup session did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAside from enjoying Kohli\u2019s voice and motion-capture performance throughout the game\u2019s cut scenes, Louden says \u201cSaros\u201d players can look forward to a story that is inspired by \u201cReturnal\u201d \u2014 but to what extent he can\u2019t reveal just yet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur goal is to build something mysterious and haunting,\u201d Louden said. \u201cSo it\u2019s actually something that\u2019s better discovered by players. So I don\u2019t want to spoil any of the game for them, but I recommend they look into it. I wish I could answer, but I think it\u2019s better I don\u2019t, so players can get lost in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for how to get through the challenging title, Louden has a few gameplay tips before you get started.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019d say the biggest thing with \u2018Saros\u2019 is be curious,\u201d Louden said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of mystery in the game, so I recommend you dig into the story. It\u2019s a surface level of the story, but there\u2019s deep mystery if you really want to go below the surface. In terms of gameplay, I would say chase the Lucenite. So Lucenite is the resource that companies come to Carcosa for; it\u2019s what you need, as well, to come back stronger. So in a lot of ways, it feels like it\u2019s quite far away, but it\u2019s worth the risk. \u2018Saros\u2019 is really about almost running into the danger, and I think if you do that, you\u2019ll succeed. If you run away, Carcosa will get you. So you need to challenge yourself and push forward, just like Arjun in the game.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sony\u2019s PlayStation debuted \u201cSaros,\u201d its latest splashy AAA title for the PS5, this week to overwhelmingly positive reviews.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,9478,271590,164358,105],"class_list":["post-643490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-playstation","tag-rahul-kohli","tag-saros","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}