Saros: How to Get All Permanent Upgrades – Full Progression Guide

Roguelikes usually make permanent progression feel risky: if you miss an NPC, skip a side room, or take the wrong route, you spend the next few runs wondering whether you locked yourself out of something important. Saros is much cleaner than that. If you want to get all permanent upgrades in Saros, the key point is simple: all six permanent abilities are tied to main-story progression, and none of them are missable. You unlock them by clearing the required biomes, defeating mandatory bosses, and following plot-critical interactions as they appear.

That matters because it changes how you should play. You do not need to comb every branch early looking for hidden movement tech. Instead, stay focused on the critical path, learn what each upgrade actually changes, and use Lucenite farming later to strengthen those abilities through the Armor Matrix. For PC and console players alike, the unlock order is the same, because these are progression abilities rather than platform-specific side mechanics.

What counts as a permanent upgrade in Saros

Current verified guide coverage agrees that Saros has six total permanent upgrades that persist across cycles. These are not the same thing as temporary weapons, artifacts, or run-specific power spikes. Permanent upgrades stay with you and gradually reshape how the game flows, especially once traversal starts opening up and combat tools become more flexible.

• Jump Network – unlocks fast travel
• Grapple – opens grapple-point traversal
• Overdrive – adds a charged power attack system
• Parry – gives you a reflection/counter tool in melee
• Eclipse Thread – later permanent story upgrade
• Blazing Strike – later permanent story/combat upgrade

The first four have clear biome-based unlock details in the available evidence. The last two are consistently identified as permanent, mandatory progression abilities, but the current evidence pack is less specific about their exact room-by-room trigger. The useful takeaway is still strong: if you keep advancing the campaign, you will get them.

How to get Jump Network in Saros

Jump Network is the first major traversal upgrade most players care about because it unlocks fast travel, and that changes the pace of the game immediately. To get it, you need to reach the end of the Shattered Rise biome and defeat the Prophet boss. Once that fight is done, the system opens and you can begin moving between linked points instead of replaying long approach sections on foot.

This is also where a lot of early confusion disappears. If you are wondering why Saros feels more backtrack-heavy than expected in the opening stretch, it is because the game has not handed you its fast travel tool yet. Do not waste time looking for a hidden switch before Prophet. The intended route is simply to push Shattered Rise to completion.

After you unlock Jump Network, start using it aggressively. Fast travel is not just a convenience feature; it is a run-stabilizer. It cuts down the amount of health, ammo, and focus you burn on repeated transit fights and makes later progression checkpoints much less punishing.

How to get Grapple in Saros

Grapple comes after you complete the Ancient Depths biome. From there, you progress to the Colony ruins and interact with a terminal when the story points you to it. Once unlocked, Grapple lets you use specific anchor points that were previously just visual teases in the environment.

The mistake to avoid here is trying to sequence-break movement before the game intends it. If you see a gap with obvious grapple logic but no usable tool, that is not a hidden puzzle you failed to solve. It is a future route. Saros uses this kind of gated traversal on purpose, so the correct response is usually to keep advancing the current biome objective rather than searching every corner for an alternate jump angle.

Once Grapple is active, revisit your map reading habits. Routes that looked decorative before can become the cleanest line through a zone, especially when you are trying to preserve resources on a strong run.

How to get Overdrive in Saros

Overdrive is acquired in Shattered Descent after speaking to Eli at the biome’s midpoint. Unlike Jump Network and Grapple, this one is more about combat rhythm than route access. It functions as a powerful time-charged attack, and it becomes even more important later because it has multiple enhancements available through the Armor Matrix.

The best way to use Overdrive is not to dump it into every basic enemy pack the moment it is available. It gets more value when you save it for elite targets, dangerous stagger windows, or boss phases where burst damage shortens the part of the fight most likely to kill you. In Saros, disciplined resource timing usually beats flashy overuse, and Overdrive fits that rule perfectly.

If you unlock Overdrive and feel underwhelmed, that is usually an upgrade-investment issue rather than a problem with the skill itself. Its ceiling improves a lot once you start feeding Lucenite into relevant Armor Matrix nodes.

How to get Parry in Saros

Parry is tied to Blighted Marsh progression. You unlock it by powering up the Carcosan device for Alab. Once active, Parry gives you a melee-based reflection tool, including the ability to send certain Nova projectiles back at enemies instead of only dodging them.

This is one of the biggest quality-of-life upgrades in the game because it changes some encounters from pure avoidance tests into controlled counters. That does not mean you should try to parry everything. Saros still rewards dodge discipline, spacing, and shield management, and not every incoming attack is meant to be reflected. Use Parry where the game clearly teaches the interaction, then expand from there once the timing feels natural.

Blighted Marsh itself can be messy because of hazards, ranged pressure, and enemies that force split-second decisions. Getting Parry there is not accidental design; it is the game giving you a new answer to a biome that is becoming more aggressive.

What to know about Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike

The final two permanent upgrades are Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike. Current reporting consistently identifies both as mandatory permanent abilities on the main path, but the evidence available here is not equally detailed about their exact trigger compared with Jump Network, Grapple, Overdrive, and Parry. The important practical point is that you cannot miss them by failing an obscure side objective.

If you are checking your progression because you have seen these names in discussions and are worried that you skipped them, the safe read is this: keep following your main biome and story objectives, especially later Eclipse-linked progression, and Saros will deliver both upgrades naturally. Do not abandon a good run trying to brute-force side routes for them. They are not hidden collectibles.

How to strengthen permanent upgrades faster

Unlocking the six permanent upgrades is only half of the long-term progression. Saros also lets you improve their usefulness through the Armor Matrix, and that is where Lucenite becomes important. Lucenite drops from enemies and funds the secondary enhancement layer that makes abilities like Overdrive and Parry scale better into harder content.

If your goal is efficient progression, farm after you have secured a useful permanent tool rather than before. Clear enemy-dense rooms, pick up Lucenite, and return to The Passage before a run collapses if you have enough value to bank meaningful upgrades. That approach is usually better than forcing one more risky biome section with low healing and losing momentum.

This is also why fast travel matters so much. Jump Network does not just save time; it improves your farming efficiency by reducing dead travel between productive fights and upgrade management.

Common mistakes that slow permanent upgrade progression

• Treating upgrades as missable. In Saros, the permanent abilities are mandatory progression checkpoints, not obscure secrets.
• Over-exploring too early. If a route looks designed for Grapple or a later traversal tool, it probably is.
• Ignoring the value of fast travel. Once Jump Network is unlocked, use it often instead of replaying long routes manually.
• Confusing Armor Matrix enhancements with the base unlock. Seeing upgrade nodes does not mean you can get the core ability early.
• Spending every combat tool on trash mobs. Overdrive and Parry both become stronger when used with intent, not on autopilot.