Sea of Stars launched on Nintendo Switch last year and, after a beefy free update and with an even beefier free DLC on the horizon, it's safe to say that it's a banger. But what inspired the developer, Sabotage, to make such a gem? What studios sit on its mood board? Who is the go-to touchstone for all things game-making? According to Sea of Stars director Thierry Boulanger, it's Nintendo.
Now, we challenge any dev to look us in the eye and say that they haven't, in some way, been inspired by the House of Mario over the years. But, as Boulanger told GamesRadar, the Big N is "just the motherlode of everything you can learn", with the studio's work in the 1980s and '90s being particular points of inspiration for the Sabotage team.
In particular, the director gave a shout-out to Super Mario Bros. 3 as an overflowing cup of lessons on everything from controls and level design to enemy presentation and music. Call us biased, but we can't help but agree with that one.
Here's the full quote via GamesRadar:
I mean, in a word, I think it's probably Nintendo, and just about everything they did in the '80s and '90s, and still to this day, to be fair. As we were sort of growing and developing and understanding, [we realized that] that's going to be what we want to do for a living.
[For Nintendo], it's just the motherlode of everything you can learn and all the teachings that [come with it]. For example, you can replay Super Mario Brothers 3, and you can still have takeaways on controls, and level design, and pacing, and even difficulty, and music and sound design, and form-following functions, and the way enemies are presented. And that still applies to this day. [Nintendo] really nails, like, all the core tenets that make a game kind of resonate and sing.
Of course, it's not just Nintendo that the Sea of Stars and Messenger devs look to. Boulanger also told the outlet that they take inspiration from "every single game, too, because we play a lot of them". Nice and specific there, eh? It seems that every day is a school day for Sabotage.
Sea of Stars landed its huge 'Dawn of Equinox' update last month, adding co-op, new combat, fresh cinematics and more to the Chrono Trigger-inspired JRPG. The free 'Throes of the Watchmaker' DLC is still on track for a Spring 2025 release, so we'll keep an eye out for more news on that one in the new year — how exciting!