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Title: The upcoming Sea of Stars expansion Throes of the Watchmaker arrives
on May 20

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 14:00:25 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-upcoming-...

The free story DLC for Sea of Stars, the excellent Chrono Trigger-inspired
indie RPG, will be available to download starting May 20. You might fear that
a free expansion is going to be light on content, but the new Throes of the
Watchmaker quest clocks in at eight hours. ItΓÇÖs a substantial add-on for
those who have rolled credits on the main campaign, which youΓÇÖll need to do
before the quest unlocks.

The DLC reunites the main gameΓÇÖs protagonists Zale and Valere, who journey
into a miniature clockwork world designed by the titular Watchmaker. His
magical invention is threatened by an ominous cursed carnival, and itΓÇÖs up
to the now experienced Solstice Warriors to save the day.

As well as a brand new area to explore, the expansion introduces a new
playable character in Artificer, a laser-wielding robotic sharpshooter who
joins the party on their quest to save the land of Horloge. And to really
drive home the circus theme of the piece, Zale swaps his sword for juggling
balls, while Valere becomes an acrobat. There are new combat abilities and
combos to master for each character, tied together by a progression loop that
is separate from the main game.

Sea of Stars composer Eric W. Brown returns for the DLC with an all-new score
that includes additional original songs from co-composer Yasunori Mitsuda of
Chrono Trigger fame.

Sea of Stars made a huge splash when it arrived back in August 2023. Heavily
inspired by SNES-era RPGs, it cleverly takes the best bits of the genre ΓÇö
gorgeous pixel art, a proper overworld map, memorable music ΓÇö while doing
away with the more controversial ΓÇÿ90s tropes, like grinding and random
battles. The turn-based combat system incorporates Mario & Luigi-style timed
button inputs, and allows you to reduce the damage received from incoming
attacks by breaking ΓÇ£locksΓÇ¥ with specific attacks of your own.

Throes of the Watchmaker is the second Sea of Stars DLC add-on, following the
(also free) Dawn of Equinox update, which added local co-op and combat
refinements. The full game is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation
5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, and costs $35.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-upcoming-...
the-watchmaker-arrives-on-may-20-140025090.html?src=rss

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