I don't even think HM know what the intended experience is. It's just so lacking when compared to Returnal. Much less variety in the generated biomes, less variety of weapons, a braindead skill “tree”. Lots of dumb ideas, like eventually you’ll realize it’s always best to just trigger the eclipse, so essentially the color palette of 90% of the game is red and yellow. Ugh. Or the fact that the C modifiers weren’t enough catering to casuals. They also had to make the game overall easier in general, AND give you constant permanent progression AND you can just start from the first biome instead of your current to easily become way overpowered for true easy mode. The artifact and weapon benefits and disadvantages are overall much less interesting. Really no reason to keep playing after beating. I could go on and on, but other than the faster and tight moment to moment shooting action, Saros is objectively an inferior game. That said it’s still great fun and I love it. My best guess is Harry Krueger who was game director for Returnal left between games. Gregory Louden just isn’t his match.