In March of 2023, developer Sabotage’s follow-up to The Messenger, Sea of Stars, graced Game Informer’s cover. In our extended chats about the game for the issue, director Thierry Boulanger was not shy about citing games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and the other classic RPG inspirations that brought the game life. Back in May, right around the release of Sea of Stars’ impressive Throes of the Watchmaker DLC, we followed up with Boulanger to talk about the game’s impressive success (it sold about seven times more than they expected it to), why the decision to make DLC wasn’t necessarily a good business decision, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, why players who don’t achieve the best ending isn’t a bad thing, and how a Game Informer joke lead to Toto’s “Africa” having a referential cameo in Sea of Stars.
You can read the full interview below.
Game Informer: Are you officially done with Sea of Stars by releasing the Throes of the Watchmaker DLC?
Thierry Boulanger: Oh, wow. [laughs] After seven years you don’t just cut the rope like this I think, but I keep thinking that we’re done. So, I will say, I think it’s the last chunk of content that’s significant. But there are some things that for production reasons and budget reasons – even though we, and as the director, I – got most of my wishes, there are some things that I wanted to see in the game that I’m now talking with the team, and we’re thinking, as we go into the next game, we’ll maybe do something like save some time on Fridays to circle back on a couple of things.
We’re actually looking at maybe for next year, or to celebrate three years of the game, or something. We’ll have some kind of, like a definitive edition, which would essentially add something in the intro portion of the game and also beef up a little bit towards the ending. So I can’t really say it’s done, done. Art is never finished. It’s only surrendered and all that, but, definitely, there won’t be more DLC, per se, that’s for sure.
Sabotage has already started work on its next game?
Yeah, it’s code name is Project Sparrow. It was pitched to the team over a year ago now at this point. We always do the same concept of a small core team paving the road for the next project, while everyone else makes DLC, because it’s a known pipeline. And then hopefully we try to land this where DLC is done and we’re ready to greet everyone in the next thing, which we’re about to do now. So it’s pretty exciting.
Do you have a timeline for release? Are we talking years from now?
Oh yeah, it probably will be years. We don’t work from necessarily, “This is when we need to be releasing something for a quarterly thing.” It’s just us. We all agree on something we’re excited to make. We set out to make it. And usually we’re going to time box a few months to maybe a couple of years. Let’s just put in the best effort on this. We don’t go in with a timeline or a due date until the shape starts emerging a little bit, and now you start seeing like, “Oh, what would it take to actually finish this project? Actually finish this proper?” But that’s when we’re maybe a year or two out from releasing.
Why was The Throes of the Watchmaker free? It’s really substantial.
Well, it wasn’t a business decision, I can say that. When we first had the Kickstarter, there was this chapter. So, the reason why it’s a DLC and not part of the main game is because it’s a side quest that doesn’t directly kick into something that’s needed for the main quest. So it made sense as a DLC because it is a side adventure. And so for backers, as an incentive, we said, “Oh, and you all will get the DLC for free when we end up making it.” And then what happened is, the game was about seven times more successful than we anticipated from the best sunny day scenario.
We’d been given the means, essentially. So, the DLC is a “thank you” lap for everyone who made it possible. Essentially, we can afford to just do it. We don’t need to sell it to stay afloat. The game is doing well enough.
But also just creatively… man, it was such a trip to just be like, “Let’s just make this as good as we can make it. And the only metric is we want to have fun making it and do what makes sense,” and to not worry about serving size, or, like, “Does it have this and this and that to justify this or that, other considerations.” Anyone who bought the game is just getting this extra thing for free, instead of us worrying about if it is worth it.
I probably wouldn’t hear a lot of game devs say, “It wasn’t really a business decision,” but is there a business advantage to it? Does the game having DLC inspire new people to come on? Have you seen data to support that? Or will you just see what happens?
So part of it is, in a way, sort of an experiment. We’re eager to see how that shakes out. Obviously, you can picture maybe someone is on the fence, right? “Oh, is it really worth $5? Is that too much?” Looking at a trailer and everything – is that a value add? Is it the thing that makes you go, “Okay, yeah, now it’s worth it. Now I’ll pull the trigger or whatever.” There’s probably an angle where some of that happens, but what we’re seeing, and it’s something we’ve been seeing through the Game Pass model and PlayStation catalog that we’ve been on, and with our Kickstarter, as well, it’s not so much the amount that you get for even the Kickstarter, even though the amount looks big on paper, it wasn’t much in terms of production costs, right? But what’s good is the awareness, which is what I’m getting at.
So, for the DLC, it’s like, well, there are the direct sales, but then there are all the indirect ones that you get because of the awareness. That’s what’s really good. And that’s true for something like Game Pass, as well. For us, it’s just people knowing about the game, people talking about the game. Now it’s everywhere in forums. People are like, “Oh, yeah, I played it because there was no barrier to entry or whatever.” I think all these things just create this sense that the game is there.
It’s a game that’s known by people who talk about games, and all of that has value on its own, even though you can’t necessarily pinpoint, like, is it worth spending so much on cinematics? That was probably ridiculous, as well. But like, hey – it’s fun. And if it gives you that third “Wow!” where you’re not just having a good time, but you’re also telling someone, then that pays for itself. You’ll never know, but we can only make the best DLC we can.
When I played the DLC I hadn’t played Sea of Stars in a while, and you seemed to be aware of that. I am curious about the design decisions of limiting your party, taking away your powers – making you start over.
I’m glad that came across. There’s a couple of things there. People have varying skill levels. Some people really engaged a lot with the timing mechanics. And some people played it more in an easy mode. And then you can be anywhere in the game, so maybe you’re starting a DLC and you have too much money. If there’s a shop, you just buy everything right away. And then everything is pointless. And then, regarding your progress, is it too easy or too hard, depending on if you are level 30, or are you level 17? So obviously it solves that whole thing at the gate.
It also kicks into it narratively as well, that, “Hey, you’re losing your power.” That’s what happens in the story, and you need to find a new class. But also, it gave us a fresh progression loop. Because I know that some people, from playing the game, wished there were more skills to use.
So, now what we have is density, right? Because it’s shorter. You keep unlocking new things. You play with them a little bit, and then you get something else right away. So, if you look at the timeline of the entire adventure, and when something happens, like when you get something new, that now happens at a faster pace.
It’s all these things that came together. Starting with nothing and learning new things naturally gives you this onboarding feeling, right? The thing in game design is always the fish bowling, right? The bowl gets bigger as the fish gets bigger. So, we started small again. It’s always fun to do that. You know how the first Spider-Man is always the best one of the three whenever they do a trilogy? Because it’s that zero to one. You just can’t beat that hype, right? It gives us a zero to one in terms of a progression ramp so that felt like it would be fun.
Why a circus theme?
I’ll try not to just say, “Why not?” [laughs]
I know players probably haven’t seen the ending just yet, but it’s obviously a union journey, right? So, it’s all a metaphor. Obviously, the clock is the journey inside, and you meet your shadow self, and you need to negotiate with it, integrate, understand what it’s trying to protect you from, and what it fears and how it acts. And you need to be like, “I don’t need you anymore.”
And so in terms of circus – what’s the thing that is the least likely to not only land, but even make sense in the first place? And let’s see if we can pull it off. How can I explain it… You know how Devil May Cry has the rule of cool, right? It’s like it’s going to be zero, or 10 out of 10, right? There’s no, like, eight with that. If they just go, “Careful. It’s rough out there,” and they say, “I like it rough,” that’s a zero. But then they do a thing where, like, the motorcycle becomes like two swords and like a full silver armor, and you’re just like, “All right!” It felt like circus was one of these where it’s going to faceplant or it’s going [to] feel like a 10.
I think it’s that’s one thing that we felt in the team throughout this. Like, “Oh yeah. Now let’s make the big golem clown thing,” and everything just came naturally because the theme was so wacky. We just had fun doing it, and also there would be this thing of playing along, which is really important. We’re never overt with the more serious angle to things. But part of this union journey thing is you also need to give up everything you built as your frame. And you need to get super vulnerable, and then you probably feel ridiculous doing that. But you also still need to sit with that contentment with it until you’re ready to re-emerge, because you don’t fear being seen in that way, or whatever.
So, there’s also that aspect of it. Imagine if you could solve all your problems and all it took was everyone you went to high school with watched you fall down the flight of stairs while holding a big jello cake that you’re like, “Oh man, that’s gonna be hard to get through.” But imagine if you did that, then you’d feel this connection that you always needed. There was this aspect to it, as well.
But also, it was just fun. We get trampolines and cannons and spotlights to show you parts of the level and everything was automatically diegetic because of the narrative. So, yeah, it was fun all around.
I was surprised that you redressed the main characters and gave them all new animations. There is so much there for free DLC. It seems like a significant amount of work.
Oh yeah, yeah. The whole thing was two years of work, full time for the team. We wanted to do “no reuse,” because we didn’t want you to enter this and think, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen this tree, but now it’s purple.” You can tell it’s a reskin. It’s another thing I’m glad that came across that you noticed, eye the beholder and all. But for us, it was really meant to show, “Hey, we love this, and thank you, and here’s something we made that is kind of ridiculous, but we’re happy it can just exist.”
When I was doing the cover story and talking to you a lot, we talked about RPG influences. And I remember you specifically cited Final Fantasy VI as actually not being a huge inspiration for Sea of Stars. Despite being a fan, it just wasn’t one you said was really rattling around your brain that much.
But then in this, in the DLC, you punch a train.
So, it was not a huge influence because I prefer the more arcade gameplay than the more tactical games. Super Mario RPG, and I really like Chrono Trigger, as well. I like lower numbers, smaller stats. I like to have fewer tools, and they each actually do something instead of like 100,000 and I just do Auto Crossbow to one shot every single random encounter that has no cost.
But Final Fantasy VI is still up there, in terms of games I played over 17 times or whatever, and music I still listen to and everything. I felt it went a bit unacknowledged in what we had, and it felt a bit incomplete. It’s not like we made a train so we could do the suplex thing. But as we were working on it, it was like, “How do we fight a train?” We should probably be moving, because it makes sense for the train to be moving. And then we had this moment. “Oh, man, are we going through the same questions that perhaps they went through?” When they were like, “Let’s figure out how to make this fight work.” And so that became, “Yeah, now we need to do it.” We were probably in a similar mindset, at the moment, in terms of the things we’re trying to solve for. We thought, let’s acknowledge that with the intro and all that.
You said Sea of Stars was seven times more successful than you estimated it would be?
That’s me personally, I mean. I don’t have the specific breakdown, but we’re way past six million players at this point. Which, you can talk about players, or units, or whatever. I know for units, we did really well.
But for us, it’s just a lot, lot more than we thought, especially coming from The Messenger, which, as we understand, there’s kind of like a ceiling to a retro game, right? You’re not expecting to see numbers like some AAA games are doing. So for us, we didn’t feel like it’s necessarily that much of a better game than the previous one. Or at least I don’t. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, necessarily, on the team, but I was expecting, like, a similar ballpark. And also, hey, this time around, we’re not with a big publisher.
It just means there’s something that resonated with a wider group. It’s not something that we necessarily predicted, and it’s certainly not something that I design towards. I just try to make the best version of a specific genre or game. We’ve been very happy, not necessarily surprised, but happy with the acknowledgement and everything. It became way bigger than we anticipated.
And so that’s why the DLC, at first, was going to be maybe a couple months of work. A thing that we just do as a small bonus extra thing. But now it’s like, “Hey – we have, we have those means. Let’s just go full on with all the ideas that we had, that we were sitting on.”
We don’t often get this kind of data (game sales, etc.), so I am curious – on what platform was it the most successful?
Well, ideally, I would review some of this. Perhaps we can get back to you with more specifics, but I would say it did amazing on the PlayStation and PS Plus catalogue. It’s a smaller catalog, right? I don’t want to say necessarily more curated. It’s not like Game Pass is quantity over quality or anything, but it’s just that they have more. Their strategy is just to have more. Whereas PlayStation is keeping it a bit more contained. So maybe that means there’s more visibility on each of the titles just because there’s less to pick from when you play. We saw a lot of players there. Steam isn’t our top one, that’s for sure. I think we’re more like a console game. For us, at heart, Nintendo will always be the big one.
[Editor’s note: This interview took place before the launch of Switch 2.] Do you want to have a Switch 2 version of Sea of Stars?
I’m actually not sure I can answer that. It’s retro-compatible, right? And it’s not like we have a smoke particle effect we only had on PS5 that justifies it, you know what I mean? So for pure like, “Oh, and then we get to resell it!” No. It’s not out yet, so I can’t speak to any, “Are we? Are we doing anything?” But technical reasons aside, I don’t think so.
We’ll see what the future holds. Do you think Sabotage will always work in pixel art?
I don’t know. We’ll always be making retro games. That’s for sure. If we were to make something that wasn’t a retro game or retro-inspired heavily, we would change the name of the studio. I don’t like my speed metal bands doing a slow acoustic album, you know? It’s their art. They can do whatever they want. But for me, it’s like, “No, I’m expecting some BPMs here. What are you guys doing?” We wouldn’t come out with something that doesn’t make sense when you put all of them together. We’re keeping it at that for sure. All in the same universe, as well.
Future Sabotage games will always take place in the same universe?
Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)
I couldn’t help but think of Sea of Stars when playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. They’re not similar, but they do both have timed button pressing. It and Sea of Stars are a part of this re-emergence of turn-based RPGs. I’m curious what you feel about that trend and if you’ve played Clair Obscur.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I love it. A lot of people on the team have been playing it. I’ve been playing it, as well. I want to say it’s very ambitious. It’s really, really just impressive. You’re playing, and then you’re like, “Oh man, they really pulled it off.” They’re really in the zone, right? It’s not safe by any means. And yet every risk seems to land and pay off to its full potential.
It’s like making a joke in a group of friends. It makes sense in your head, and you hope it lands. And it feels like, for them, a lot of those things that they just tried, everyone starts laughing. They’re just getting a standing ovation. That’s got to be a dream come true in terms of game direction and everything. Kudos to them, for sure. I’m having a blast. Since Lost Odyssey, I’ve wanted a triple A-looking, turn-based RPG to feel like that instead of trying to change it up too much. Personally, I can’t really get into Persona.
I’m in a similar boat, actually. I really have to have that engaging combat. I want to press buttons.
I feel like they made this sort of perfect mix, and that’s what’s beautiful about its game design and game direction. They managed to blend it all. You are compelled to feel what’s potentially great about these types of systems, right? It really sings for people who, with other games, maybe they were less patient, less invested, or enthused by the theme. Then they missed out on an experience that they’d never had. For a lot of people, it’s their first turn-based game. They gave the genre a shot, and now they understand. And then does that open them up, and now they want to play, like, 10 or 12 other titles. We’ve seen even more discussion about even our game since [Clair] came out. It’s great. It’s good to see for us. Games are a celebration, and anyone joining in and then adding to the fun is like, “Yes!”
French is your primary language, right? Does Clair Obscur make you more confident to have a little bit more French in your games?
Well, we actually already have a lot, but it’s hidden here and there. Plays on words. There’s a lot of things in Clair Obscur where you get these references if you know the language. Also, a lot of the singing that goes on, I understand the words.
That went over my head. I didn’t get any of it.
It actually spoiled a couple of things for me because sometimes it flat out say certain plot things in the music. But I would say it made it more unique. And I think it also made sense to play it that way, because then it became less about the twists, right? I don’t want to spoil anything, but just any twist that happened, or any reveals that happened, for me, I learned some of it through the lyrics and the keywords I heard while playing. For me, it then became less about the twist. It was more like, “How are they going to do this thing?” It was a bit more clear what was going on throughout. But in that way, the execution of everything was, “Oh, it’s building up really slowly, and it’s coming alive.”
Anyway, I think “beautiful” is the word for that game.
Is it okay if we dive into some Sea of Stars spoiler questions?
Yeah, sure.
So, Garl – he dies during the course of the game. You can bring him back, but it’s optional. It’s tricky. It’s an extended, post-game mission to bring him back. You can see player stats. You can see how far into the game players are making it. Does it make you sad that there are players who probably finished the game and just moved on and were like, “Bummer about Garl.”
[Laughs] No, not really. [laughs] That’s interesting. Well, first of all, if I start looking at that, I think I’ll go crazy. I don’t do it much. I don’t want it to influence me. I was a big [World of Warcraft] player back in the day, and at some point they went like, “Oh, only this percentage of players see the cool raid bosses. So, let’s dumb everything down so everyone sees everything.” And for me personally, that was kind of like… eh. There was no longer this high bar to try to achieve to get to see something that now I can just see it anyway.
I’m bad at this where, if there’s an easy mode, I’ll just take it. But that takes away this cathartic moment that I could have had instead. And I would never argue to take any content away from anyone. That ‘s not what I am saying. What I’m saying is, for me personally, I’m bad at keeping myself in the lane that will make me get the most value out of something.
And if I think of a game, to go to the extreme – Sekiro – it took me, I don’t know, maybe five years at this point, to beat the game? Has it even been five years since it was out? Anyway, for the first two years after the game was out, I couldn’t even get close to the ending. I couldn’t get near the ending and I thought I’d never play it again. And for me, that was – as Expedition 33 reminded us – art is both a window and a mirror, right? I was like, “Okay, that’s Sekiro. That’s what it’s telling me. I can’t do it, right?” And that world is much more beautiful for how dangerous and inaccessible it is to me. I just… I can’t do it. But I felt something and I saw something there that’s unique to me. That’s my interaction with that piece of art, and I loved it for that. I ended up being able to do it with a friend later and that also kicked into another connection.
I guess what I’m getting at is some people? They feel like they’re done after the first ending. And that’s fine. That’s the experience that they have. And it’s been, in a way, designed that if that’s where you sit, if that’s where you leave it, then that’s fine. There’s certain feelings that you should get around it that should also make sense, or at least be your interpretation, which are always obviously valid.
And then if you start turning every stone, and if you start doing more than what’s there, then you should get more than a trophy, right? Resurrecting him is something that should land on a deeper level than if you haven’t earned it. If you didn’t put in the time and effort. If you didn’t care enough to set out to do it, it would be lost on you anyway. So it’s all the better if you don’t do it because you didn’t want to, it wouldn’t have hit home anyway if we were to just give it to you.
There’s a moment fairly deep in Sea of Stars – and it’s a moment I think people were very politely unwilling to spoil for others – and it’s when the game, for just a moment, turns 3D. The boat they’re traveling in becomes a 3D object, and the camera swings around. It’s wild and really unexpected.
Can you tell me the thought process behind that sequence? Was it difficult to implement that moment in an otherwise 2D game?
We spent a lot of time on this. That’s for sure. We agreed at the beginning of production, especially with Jeakim [Hamel], who’s our graphics programmer and technical artist, that I had five tokens, essentially. So like five instances of, “Hey man – you really go to town on this.” This moment? You need to spend, like 200 times more effort than what we make as a streamlined process and pipeline, because they were key, important things. Like, we lose something essential if we don’t have that. One of them was being able to see through water pipes in the Water Temple. But anyway, that’s still just a me thing, but I still love them.
So, yeah, it took a lot. But also, there was an understanding at the gate that that was something we would do, because it was part of when I first pitched the game. It was in the elevator pitch that I gave to the team in 2018 or something. That was in there. So it was understood that that was important. That’s a watershed moment.
You’re going to another world. You’re traveling through another dimension. So, the way we display that is literal, right? Through the next dimension. Even though it’s a very short sequence, it would be the equivalent of the 8- to 16-bit renders in Messenger, which meant past and future. This one means like going through another dimension, and in the script we had it that you spend a lot of time doing that, and it would be a big portion of the game, but it just happens to be a short moment thing in the final game.
For better or worse, because of the graphical shift in The Messenger, when the boat turned 3D, I was like, “Oh my god, I’m playing the rest of the game as a 3D RPG!” And then when it went back to the 2D ship. I was like, “Oh, okay.” Did you fear players would react that way?
It was actually considered that we do just that. But you know why we didn’t do it? Because of Wild Arms. Did you play Wild Arms on PS One? It’s worth it for the opening alone. The intro with the cinematics and the climbing? It’s so good. I’ll need to watch it later.
But, Wild Arms – what happens is the game looks amazing, and then you enter combat, and that early 3D just ruins it for me. You’re in 2D outside of combat, and for me, that look was perfect. It wasn’t like 16-bit 2D. They had these things where the rooftops would fade out, and you get this cozy sense that you’re inside and everything. I was like, “Oh, man. It’s beautiful.” And then combat hits, and I was like, “Wait, what?” And it’s not only that it didn’t age well. I felt that way the day it released. I was like, “Why? Why did it transition to that 3D?” I’d like to see a 2D-only remaster of Wild Arms. I feel like that would be the best version it could be.
Thinking of Wild Arms and how… 8-bit to 16-bit feels [in The Messenger] like an upgrade in the same genre. But switching from 2D to 3D is like, “Hey, that’s not what I signed up for!” It could completely ruin the whole thing, and then people check out and they don’t even finish it now. We killed it pretty fast.
It also seems like you would effectively be making two games, right? That seems like a reason not to do it, as well.
Another spoiler-y question I had as I was thinking back on the game, diving into the Sea of Stars subreddit… Brugaves and Erlina – what exactly happened to them at the end of the game? We just got a look at them, and they had become monsters. That was the last peak we got at those characters.
In the case of Brugaves, he’s in Messenger, right? As his demon form. And for Erlina, it seems like she survived. It seems they’re living on to be arch villains in future arcs.
Sea of Stars and The Messenger – do you feel like players have discovered all the overlap between those two games? Or are there things people haven’t seen yet or haven’t figured out?
There’s things that will only make sense if we get to make more games. My favorite thing is how in The Messenger, you’re in the sunken shrine, and it’s got all these statues. And then two years after releasing that game, we make a Kickstarter, and you can get a statue if you pledge enough? And then Sea of Stars ends, and you realize that the area where we have all the backer statues is that thing from Messenger. Canonically, you were already in the previous game that takes place in the future.
I think people have, at this point, pretty much seen or understood what there was to understand. I always love making something that’s deceivingly simple, and it’s really the deeper thing to understand is really if you just want to geek out about it for fun. So some things are still left to be noticed, but they don’t have the lens to get those things yet. But I think playing maybe the next game they might see in Messenger, “Oh, that’s what that meant.” There are some of those things left, but not with anything that they can already figure out.
I put out a call on the Sea of Stars subreddit to let them know I was talking to you, so I could see if there were any questions they might want to ask. Here’s one: I would like to know if there’s any connection to Garl’s Celestial Willow jam cookies and sandwiches and the greater-than-average strength of Zale and Valere. Was the forbidden consumption of Celestial Willow sap actually the key to the Solstice Warriors’ ascension all along?
[Laughs] The short answer is no, but… there is something about Garl. Let’s leave it at that.
Thank you so much, Thierry! It’s always fun to talk to you, and I am excited to see what you’re doing next.
Thank you so much. And I don’t know if you know this. I don’t remember when you last talked to [Sea of Stars composer] Eric [W. Brown], but did you know you manifested the Toto, “Africa” song? He told you that, right?
He did tell me that which I thought was really fascinating and hilarious. As a reference to Chrono Trigger having a song that sounds remarkably close to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, I jokingly suggested Sea of Stars should have a song that makes reference to a different popular ‘80s song, and I think I suggested Toto’s “Africa” because it was having a real meme moment at the time.
I’m pretty sure Eric wouldn’t mind. I’m in our Slack. I typed your name to see what would happen. So, April 14, 2023… he says, “I had another version of B’stie Boy theme, but thought this would be cooler and more fun. The second section is actually a Toto’s ‘Africa’ reference. It was Kyle from Game Informer’s idea to do a legally safe knock-off of an ‘80s tune, à la Robo’s theme and Chrono Trigger.” And then later on, he said, “Robo’s theme is Rick Astley.” I didn’t know that…”
I don’t think it was ever intentional, but it really sounds like the Rick Astley song. If you go and listen to Robo’s theme and “Never Gonna Give You Up”, they sound remarkably similar. I don’t think it was on purpose, but that’s become a joke.
My joke was like, “You guys should have some comparable ‘80s reference.” I was very tickled by that. I thought that was really funny and it’s also a great song.
Later in the message he says, “It was a little wink to our boy Kyle who planted that seed.” So, yeah, definitely. He said it like three times. That part is all you [laughs].
Well, thank you. I’m glad if I affected even the tiniest little thing. That’s very rewarding.
For more on Sea of Stars, you can read our review here, as well as our impressions of the DLC here. You can also read the full Sea of Stars cover story for free right here.