Saros trophy list includes an unexpected tribute to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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Saros is here, and like all the best PS5 games, it has a big list of trophies to unlock. Most of those trophies are things you'd expect, awarded for beating major bosses, unlocking items, and a handful of more obscure challenges. The list also features a handful of Easter egg tributes to Housemarque's own past, as well as an unexpected tribute to 2025's nigh-universal GOTY, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

The Saros trophy list includes an item called Carcosan Cartographer, which challenges you to "use the Carcosan Modifiers to embark upon and survive 33 expeditions." Carcosan Modifiers are essentially difficulty tweaks you can activate before a run – some are perks that'll help you out, while others are debuffs that you can use as a trade-off to equip more helpful options.

Either way, it's easy to guess what "survive 33 expeditions" refers to. The shoutout to Sandfall Interactive's J'RPG is made all the more notable because it seems to be the only reference to an external game in the whole trophy list, at least as far as I can tell.

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But the list does include a few references to Housemarque's own history. Bullet Paradise, for example, asks you to "dispatch 1995 regular hostiles." Break the Cycle, similarly, asks you to "absorb 2021 projectiles using the Shield." 2021 is, of course, the year that Returnal released, and "break the cycle" is its tagline.

Expedition 33 has certainly made its mark across the industry, and not just in the form of all those GOTY wins. A decades-old French MMO offered a similar Easter egg in tribute, and developers as notable as Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi and Penguin Adventure's own Hideo Kojima have been there to give the devs their flowers.

Saros directors say Housemarque's greatest influence is itself: "As much as we love other games, we wanted to do it our way."

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Dustin BaileyStaff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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