Housemarque has put Saros' lead character under the spotlight in a new behind-the-scenes documentary, with Rahul Kohli and the development team explaining how Arjun Devraj came together through performance capture, voice work and one badly timed LA commute.
The studio's three-part documentary series, Finding Carcosa, now includes Becoming Arjun, an official look at the process behind the Soltari Enforcer players meet in Saros. The PS5 game launched this week, and the new episode gives players a clearer sense of how Housemarque is treating story and character alongside its bullet-heavy action.
In the official post, Housemarque describes Arjun as part of a rescue crew sent to Carcosa to secure a lost mining colony. The character may also be hiding his own motives, giving Kohli's performance more to carry than a straightforward sci-fi hero role.
Director Paul J. Vogel said the episode was made to show both the technical and human sides of building a game character.
"As both a filmmaker and a lifelong gamer, I’ve always been fascinated by what makes a video game character truly feel authentic. Really pop out of the screen. With this episode, I wanted to not only peel back the curtain to share a glimpse of the technical side of performance capture, but also shine some light on the human process behind it."
Kohli said his first day on the performance capture stage began awkwardly, with finger calibration and the strangeness of working in a lycra suit, before it settled into something closer to a rehearsal room. He also cited advice from Troy Baker, who told him performance capture could be "the purest form of acting you’ll ever do."
The team also arranged the shoot so the cast could find their characters gradually. Actor Louden explained that the production started with more dreamlike material before moving toward more naturalistic scenes, giving the performers room to discover who they were playing.
The most memorable detail is how Arjun's voice clicked into place. Kohli said Housemarque needed trailer lines recorded before a six-month gap in his availability, forcing him to cross Los Angeles early in the morning before catching a flight. By the time he reached the session, the frustration had changed the performance.
"And I was so worked up and angry at seven, eight in the morning. We recorded the teaser trailer. And that voice that came out was angrier, more intense than anything we’d done or explored previously. And Greg and I were immediately like… ‘wait, that’s him. That’s who we’ve been looking for’…. being angry and not being good enough to hide it… that was where Arjun was really born."
That anecdote fits Saros' position as a bigger narrative swing for Housemarque after Returnal. The studio is still known for flow-state arcade action, but Becoming Arjun presents Saros as a game where performance and character identity are doing more of the emotional work.
Saros is available now on PS5.