Highlights

  • Sabotage Studio announced a new 3-player co-op mode for Sea of Stars, the indie RPG that already surpassed 5 million players.
  • The new co-op mode, called Single Player+, will allow each player to control a character during exploration and turn-based combat.
  • Sea of Stars won Best Indie Game at The Game Awards 2023, drawing comparisons to Chrono Trigger and receiving praise from that game's creators.

Sabotage Studio, the creator of Sea of Stars, revealed a new update that will add a co-op mode for the indie RPG. The announcement came after Sea of Stars surpassed more than 5 million players, and in it, the studio provided a teaser to showcase how this new co-op mode would work in practice.

Sea of Stars is an indie RPG that launched in 2023 and took the gaming world by storm. It puts players in the roles of Zale and Valere, two Solstice Warriors tasked with protecting the world from the villainous Fleshmancer. Its retro aesthetic, turn-based RPG mechanics, and soundtrack composed by Yasunori Mitsuda led many fans to consider Sea of Stars as a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger. To the credit of Sabotage Studio, the creators of Chrono Trigger praised Sea of Stars as one of 2023's best RPGs.

unicorn-overlord_sea-of-stars
Related
Unicorn Overlord is to Tactical RPGs What Sea of Stars is to Classic JRPGs

Atlus and Vanillaware's Unicorn Overlord looks to provide the same kind of genre 'comfort food' that Sabotage's Sea of Stars delivered.

As a result of its accomplishments, Sea of Stars reached 5 million players across all its platforms. This achievement prompted Sabotage Studio to officially announce a new three-player couch co-op mode for the game, titled Single Player+. The 8-second teaser shows that each player independently controls the three party members during map exploration. Sabotage Studio said each participant would also handle their respective character in Sea of Stars' turn-based combat and hinted at a new feature called "Co-op timed hits." However, the mode is still in development, and players should expect further news down the road.

Sea of Stars Adding Three-Player Co-Op Mode

The co-op mode is not the only planned update for Sea of Stars. Four months after the game's release, Sabotage Studio revealed it was already working on the RPG's first DLC, Throes of The Watchmaker. Little is known about the expansion, but Throes of The Watchmaker should arrive within a year of Sea of Stars' launch if it follows the same release window as Sabotage's previous game, The Messenger, and its DLC.

While comparisons to Chrono Trigger may sound intimidating, Sea of Stars didn't shy away and won Best Indie Game at The Game Awards 2023. For many fans, Sea of Stars is a nostalgic trip back to the '90s when RPGs tended to have a lighter, more laid-back tone. The community's support for Sabotage Studio allowed the developer to go full throttle and begin work on its mysterious third game.

Sea of Stars' three-player couch co-op mode seems to draw inspiration from another Super Nintendo RPG, Secret of Mana. As an action RPG, Secret of Mana allows up to three players to play together, each controlling their character while exploring and battling enemies in real-time. Visions of Mana is the latest installment in the iconic Square Enix series, scheduled to release in the summer of 2024.