Sea of Stars, the charmingly Nintendo-style RPG follow-up to The Messenger, has been delayed into 2023, developer Sabotage Studio announced this week.
Announced back in 2020 (opens in new tab) with a Kickstarter campaign, Sea of Stars immediately won over our Tyler W with its delightfully not-quite-retro look—enhancing retro pixellated worlds with flashier, more contemporary dynamic lighting. But while the plan was to ship Sea of Stars this year, the Quebec-based developer has since explained it needs a bit more time to polish up those pixels.
Sea of Stars will release in 2023 pic.twitter.com/S7U71G1oWhJune 30, 2022
Sabotage stressed that the delay was maintain both the quality of the game and the quality of the team. And while the full game won’t arrive until 2023, it sounds like the plan is to hopefully release a “playable slice” sometime this year.
Sea of Stars really does look gorgeous, mind, a retro RPG painted with a kind of blooming, nostalgic haze. It’s a far cry from the team’s previous, Ninja Gaiden-inspired action platformer The Messenger, but supposedly takes place in the far past—following a sun wizard and a moon wizard as they lead a classic RPG party through an island fantasy romp.
It sounds wonderfully nostalgic. It’s just a shame we’ll have to wait a wee bit longer before setting sail on a Sea of Stars.