Sabotage Studio, the developer behind the awesome side-scrolling, ninja-platformer The Messenger, has announced that its upcoming turn-based RPG Sea of Stars will hit competing subscription services PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass on the same day: August 29. This would be the first time, as far as we know, that a game has come to both subscription services at the same time.
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The retro-styled role-playing game was already slated to launch on Xbox Game Pass back in June, with the developer tweeting then that it was “extremely excited” to confirm the news. Now, Sabotage Studio has announced that Sea of Stars is coming to PlayStation Plus toward the end of August, as well, and a demo is currently available to download on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
On the PlayStation Blog, level designer Philippe Dionne made it clear that the current demo is not the final product but “represents what we are shooting for.”
“The demo features areas that will be part of the final game, but we made sure to pick a slice that did not reveal any major spoilers from the main story,” Dionne wrote. “It is designed to give a hint of context but mostly showcases some gameplay systems and mechanics around dungeon crawling and combat. It aims to provide a sense of the tone and vibe without giving away major points of the journey.”
Sea of Stars is inspired by classics like Chrono Trigger and is a prequel to the acclaimed 2018 game The Messenger. It follows two powerful heroes combining their powers of the moon and sun to thwart an evil alchemist known only as The Fleshmancer who has been terrorizing the world with their monstrous creations. With six playable characters and an emphasis on traversal, Sea of Stars seeks to tell an epic mystical narrative about the power of friendship.
Sabotage Studio declined Kotaku’s request for comment.
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Sea of Stars will be available on the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog, a library of games you can access by subscribing to the $15 Extra or $18 Premium tiers. It isn’t first-party, as it’s developed by an independent studio, but considering Sony’s remarks about how adding exclusive games to PS Plus the same day they launch would diminish their quality, it’ll be interesting to see how successful Sea of Stars will be. If it performs well on the subscription service, it could show Sony that making its first-party games available to subscribers of its service could be a boon for developers and gamers alike. Who knows?
Sea of Stars will also be available on Nintendo and Switch and PC.