Sabotage Studio is bidding farewell to Sea of Stars today, and it’s sending the game off with one final free update. The Sunset Edition is the last content update Sea of Stars will ever get, and Sabotage creative director Thierry Boulanger walked through everything it includes in a video.
On the gameplay side, the Sunset Edition revisits the balancing for both Normal and Hard modes and brings new key art from artist Bryce Kho. The bigger addition, though, is a brand new opening cinematic that sets up the story, its characters, and the world they live in. For the first time, returning players get to put faces to the heroes of the past, with new scenes recalling the cataclysm they endured.
The update is free for existing owners across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBOX One, XBOX Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 (with GameShare support), and PC via Steam and GOG. Newcomers can grab the base game on Steam at a discount starting today.
I reviewed Sea of Stars when it launched in 2023, and it stuck with me. In my review, I argued that calling it just a retro-inspired turn-based RPG sold it short, since for me it worked as a gateway, a way for a new generation to discover the genre that defined my 1990s childhood and maybe circle back to classics like Chrono Trigger. I also said one particular cutscene landed among my top 10 coolest moments in any video game, which makes going out on a brand new cinematic feel fitting.
That doesn’t mean the game was flawless, and I was upfront about its rough edges in that review. I found the combat a bit lackluster after 15 hours or so and called it the weakest link, but I still came away calling Sea of Stars a great success, the kind of focused, original game 2023 needed. I’d even hoped it would grow into a franchise of its own.
The studio kept supporting it well past launch with the free Dawn of Equinox update and the multi-hour Throes of the Watchmaker DLC, and the Best Indie winner at The Game Awards 2023 has now been played by more than six million people, up from the four million we noted by the end of that year. With Sea of Stars wrapped, Sabotage has moved fully onto its next game, currently going by Project Sparrow. Sea of Stars itself still has a physical Collector’s Edition from iam8bit on the way, due later this year.
