The History of Sabotage Studio
Sam Sennett, 2024
Sabotage Studio is a very interesting indie team in terms of how they operate. Everything about the atmosphere their team creates is seen through almost anything they do. Sabotage is a studio that is not fazed by trends or what other people think is the correct course of action. Once they have a goal, they are unwavering in making sure that whatever they create comes out in exactly the way they want it to. It really seems like just a group of friends doing what they want, and the result of these interactions is how we've gotten two truly fantastic indie games from those - The Messenger, and Sea of Stars.
Thierry Boulanger was a fan of video games ever since he was four and growing up with the NES, and games like Mega Man 2, Metroid, and Zelda. One of his favorites was Ninja Gaiden 2, as he was captivated by the music, challenging gameplay, and story. He wanted to pursue a career in video games since that moment. After some experimenting with other careers, since he wasn't sure if being a game developer would work out in the long-term, he and a friend he made in the workforce Mathieu Dunlay decided to attend Collège Bart which offered a one-year course on programming video games. Within this time period, Thierry started work on his school project, a game that would later morph into The Messenger a decade later. Thierry and his friends make their way through the video game industry, bonding over their common interests, and dream big about starting their own game studio, which officially happened in 2016, when they created Sabotage Studio in Quebec City.
Published by Devolver Digital, The Messenger was released on Aug 30, 2018 for PC, and Nintendo Switch, though it later came to the PS4 and Xbox One in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Born from Thierry's love of Ninja Gaiden 2 when he was a kid, he and his studio of 8 people wanted to create a game that invoked the same feelings he felt when playing it. It was designed to be a sort of celebration of games from the retro-platforming era, as well as proof of just how far we as an industry have come, while also "leveraging expectations as a main ingredient."
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| 8-bit graphics in The Messenger |
The Messenger is a game heavily inspired by platformers of the NES era, which can be seen in every aspect of its creation. The graphics, tight controls, and even the soundtrack composed by Eric "Rainbowdragoneyes" Brown is meant to be evocative of this era. The game switches between an 8-bit aesthetic, and 16-bit aesthetic, to symbolize the time travel present in the games plot. Said plot revolves around a nameless ninja who is tasked with delivering a mysterious ancient scroll to the top of the mountain to an east. With no other guidance, the ninja sets off through dangerous biomes, collecting items, learning new abilities, accompanied by Quarble, a demon who revives you whenever you die in exchange for a price.
The story itself has a very comedic, self-aware tone to it, seemingly taking every opportunity it can to poke at traditions from the past, while still respecting the bygone era. The Shopkeeper is a character who the ninja goes to for upgrades, and he is the most prevalent when it comes to comedy, even breaking the fourth wall on multiple occasions.
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| 16-bit graphics in The Messenger |
The Messenger ended up becoming one of the most popular indie games of 2018, even winning the Game Award for Best Debut Indie Game, and being nominated for Best Independent Game. Critics and gamers lauded the games funny tone, and the fact that it was able to recapture the joy of the NES/Genesis eras. The gameplay and controls were also praised as incredibly responsive, and complimented the level design and unlockable upgrades perfectly. Music and art design were also praised as more than sufficiently recreating the 90's platformer style, and being very reminiscent of an earlier indie game, Shovel Knight from Yacht Club Games. Criticism was thrown towards the characterization of Quarble, who some found to be unfunny, annoying, and distracting. Some players also did not care for the transition in gameplay genre around halfway through the game from platformer, to a more exploration, Metroidvania-like. Overall, The Messenger was a huge success for Sabotage Studio, and after a month break, the team quickly moved on to work on their next game, alongside a DLC update for The Messenger known as Picnic Panic.
Sea of Stars successfully pays respects to RPGs of yesteryear with as much grace as The Messenger had, due in part to the graphics, deep RPG, and the music composed by Eric Brown is meant to be evocative of this era. Sabotage Studio even went as far as to get Yasunori Mitsuda, composer for famous RPGs such as Chrono Trigger (ironically enough), and Xenoblade Chronicles. The plot revolves around two characters known as Valere, and Zale, who are Solstice Warriors able to harness the power of the sun and moon known as Eclipse Magic. These two are the only ones able to wield this magic, making them the only ones capable of defeating Dwellers, monsters created by the evil alchemist known as the Fleshmancer. They set off along with friend they will meet along the way to stop the Dwellers, and rid the land of the Fleshmancer.
Sea of Stars almost immediately became one of the indie darlings not just of 2023, but of all time. The game in its first day sold 100k copies, and in its first week sold 250k copies. Sabotage confrimed in March 2024 that the game had sold 5 million copies. The game proceeded to win the Game Award for Best Independent game, and even be nominated for Best Role Playing Game. Fans and critics lauded Sabotage Studio for managing to recapture all the best aspects of RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Golden Sun into one complete, modernized package, that The Guardian even compared to a "lost, late classic of the Super Nintendo era." The main critique of the game was for as good as it was, it didn't really innovate on the RPG genre as some were hoping. Nevertheless, Sea of Stars managed to be a smash hit, even in 2023 which was notorious for lots of amazing releases, and Sabotage should be very proud of the work that they have done on this masterpiece.
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