Indie developer Sabotage Studios made a surprise announcement regarding Sea of Stars. Last year’s hit, 16-bit-inspired RPG is getting a local co-op mode with support for up to three players.
The studio is calling it “Single Player+.” During most of the story, players control three characters in turn-based combat, while roaming as a single squad (with the others following).
In Single Player+, other local players can play together (presumably on the same screen/console), with each player controlling a different character.
It’s understandably hard to visually prove multiplayer in turn-based combat, so the developers released a (very brief) teaser video showing off exploration in which the party members move in different directions. Pretty spiffy!
During combat, players can engage use new co-op timed hits, lining up button presses at the right time to enhance attacks.
Sea of Stars is heavily inspired by classic 90s 16-bit RPGs such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 4-6. I’m only enough to remember that Final Fantasy 6 had limited local multiplayer back in the day, though only during combat.
Though we found it a bit long in the tooth, Sea of Stars has been a critical and commercial success for Sabotage Studios, reaching the hugely impressive milestone of five million players, and winning Best Indie Game at The Game Awards 2023.
Sea of Stars is available on PC, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox. It’s rated E10+.
