Hey everybody, Thierry right here talking for Sabotage. Our mates at PlayStation prolonged an invite to share extra about every part that has occurred for the reason that launch of Sea of Stars, and how that led our staff to work full-time for the higher a part of a yr on a serious free replace known as Daybreak of Equinox.
So let’s dive into a abstract of what’s included, specifically normal updates, fight 2.0, and sofa co-op.
Updates
Together with numerous bug fixes and micro changes, we added a bonus pre-rendered cinematic cutscene and lastly received to revamp the sport’s first hour by including fight animations for the child variations of our heroes. This allowed us to ditch the flashback construction by having motion straight within the intro, one thing we sadly had to surrender on throughout manufacturing.
We additionally added issue presets, a bunch of latest Relics to customise the expertise, and even a complete Speedrun Mode designed with the assistance of our neighborhood. There’s some new music, character portraits, and animations—the listing goes on.
Combat 2.0
The replace brings two key adjustments to the fight system: Sticky Combo Factors and Thriller Locks. Together with a complete balancing cross, in fact.
Sticky Combo Factors: The gist of it right here is that Combo Factors now stay after battle, giving combo strikes much more use total, whether or not to open extra aggressively on a daily combat, or offering extra choices to deal injury of the differing types when coping with locks.
This one primarily addresses the sensation of there not being a sufficient number of strikes within the sport. The imaginative and prescient was all the time to offer every character a small equipment (MOBA-style), the place every transfer has situational utility, reasonably than an enormous listing the place gamers pigeonhole themselves into solely utilizing their couple of favorites. All good intentions, however whereas the sport boasts over 40 distinctive and custom-animated strikes complete, the shortage of Combo Factors meant gamers seldom engaged with most of them, lowering the perceived scope of fight to feeling like solely having three expertise per character.
Thriller Locks: That is one other one that ought to all the time have been there. In brief, Thriller Locks carry a brand new gameplay loop round revealing the right way to break enemies’ spells each time they’re first encountered. As a substitute of displaying the injury sorts required for every lock, they’re hidden, requiring the participant to strive totally different assaults to see what’s going to break every lock. Word that that is on a per enemy kind, per spell foundation, which means that development towards revealing Thriller Locks is saved in real-time.
The principle impact on the expertise right here is that there will probably be extra enemy spells flying total, bringing a small uptick in issue by counting on the prevalence of extra gnarly enemy strikes reasonably than relying solely on the intricate steadiness between injury executed and injury obtained. This alteration additionally provides a “Reveal” perform to a few of the character expertise and combos, including extra layers of technique primarily based on whether or not it’s time to map a brand new enemy’s spells, or to go all out with injury. Mixed with Sticky Combo Factors and issue presets, Thriller Locks offers us the definitive version of the fight system for Sea of Stars.
Sofa co-op (or on-line utilizing Share Play)
We knew this one could be difficult given the lots of of cutscenes, interactive objects, digital camera work, puzzles, menus, NPC interactions, and numerous different issues that might merely break in hundreds of how if multiple participant had full management over the sport’s world.
However the co-op dream was very a lot alive inside the staff, so we went for it, manually implementing each single edgecase one by one till we had a full-on three-player mode. You may even use PS5’s Share Play function to play on-line co-op with a pal (PlayStation Plus required, here’s how to use it).
In fight: Combat initiates when any participant touches an enemy or projectile. On this mode, it doesn’t matter who controls which character within the overworld; gamers take turns at random choosing the subsequent motion from the character of their alternative.
At any time when an motion happens, all gamers can chime in to carry out Workforce Blocks and Workforce Hits for much more bonus results. For instance, each time all three gamers time a block correctly, the injury is all the time zero.
Out on this planet: We aimed for max freedom outdoors fight. All three gamers can run, swim, climb, store, change tools, discuss to NPCs, set off cutscenes, provoke fight, and many others. Something {that a} solo participant may do, we wished to make out there for all. There’s even 1v1 Wheels now.
Together with a pleasant bubble to carry any stray gamers again into the journey, a high-five mechanic brings a enjoyable little solution to work together with each other whereas gaining a brief pace increase within the course of. Oh, we additionally made the animation units required for fishing to be out there for all characters.
Wanting forward
With the Daybreak of Equinox replace within the rear view, the staff is now targeted on the upcoming free DLC Throes of the Watchmaker, which is on monitor to be launched within the Spring of 2025.
We hope you loved this behind-the-scenes look into what’s been happening at Sabotage over the previous yr. Thanks all as soon as once more for the overwhelming assist. Whether or not you’ll be taking part in for the primary time or going for an additional run, we hope you’ll get pleasure from Sea of Stars in its full expression.
Sea of Stars: Daybreak of Equinox content material replace is now out there on PS4 and PS5. Protected travels!