Why a Saros Trophy Asks You to Survive Exactly 33 Runs

Thirty-three is an oddly specific number for a trophy requirement. Survive 10 runs, sure. Survive 50, fine. But 33? If you played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the reference clicks instantly.

Saros, Housemarque's new roguelike bullet hell shooter, includes a trophy called Carcosan Cartographer that asks players to "use the Carcosan Modifiers to embark upon and survive 33 expeditions." Carcosan Modifiers are essentially difficulty tweaks you toggle before a run; some buff you, others debuff you in exchange for equipping stronger perks. Flip any of those switches and finish a run, and it counts toward the 33. The phrasing is deliberate. "Survive 33 expeditions" is about as direct a nod to Sandfall Interactive's RPG as you can make without slapping the logo on screen. I love that Housemarque went out of its way to do this, especially since Expedition 33 is a completely different genre from a completely different studio with no corporate connection.

It appears to be the only reference to an external game in the entire trophy list. The rest of Saros' Easter eggs are self-referential: Bullet Paradise requires you to dispatch 1,995 regular enemies, a nod to Housemarque's founding year, while Break the Cycle asks you to absorb 2,021 projectiles using the Shield, referencing Returnal's 2021 launch and its tagline. Saros also features in-game costumes referencing God of War, Death Stranding, and Ghost of Yotei, but those are first-party PlayStation stablemates. Singling out an indie RPG for a trophy-level tribute feels more personal.

Expedition 33's influence keeps showing up in unexpected places. A decades-old French MMO added its own Easter egg tribute, Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi publicly praised it, and the game recently picked up Best Game at the BIG Festival Awards at Gamescom Latam in São Paulo. A year after launch, a Push Square reader poll of over 2,000 votes showed 70% of respondents still consider it "one of the best games ever made" or "a very special game." When a bullet hell roguelike from a different studio bakes your game's name into a trophy, that's the kind of industry respect that no award ceremony can replicate.