Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker | |||
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Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker is a free DLC expansion to the acclaimed 2023 RPG Sea of Stars. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Review Overview
What is Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker?
In Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker, Solstice Warriors Valere and Zale will find themselves investigating the mysterious but whimsical world of Horloge, a world that seems to be inside a miniature clock. Within the world houses vast carnival-like structures, where its inhabitants are all cursed by said magical carnival. The warriors must see through the inner workings of Horloge and understand the rules of the land in order to fully utilize their powers of Sun and Moon!
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker features:
⚫︎ Sprite Pixel Art Graphics
⚫︎ Real-time inputs on a turn-based game
⚫︎ A new cast of antagonists
⚫︎ A new playable character
⚫︎ New classes for Valere and Zale
⚫︎ Up to three-player co-op mode
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker's gameplay and story.
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Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Pros & Cons
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Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Overall Score - 80/100
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker tries to fix its bland protagonists with more character focus, but ends up unbalancing an already shaky story. Meanwhile, it also builds on the base game’s strong combat system with new timing mechanics and more interactive maps, but overuses puzzles at the cost of exploration and discovery. Despite these trade-offs, it remains a visually stunning, content-rich expansion that’s hard to argue against—especially since it’s free.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Story - 6/10
I have no idea why, but the game somehow made the story worse by trying to fix one of its core writing issues. Sure, the protagonists are no longer walking scarecrows with the responsiveness of parrots, but this improvement came at the cost of the narrative's balance—a major blow, considering it already lacked climactic moments and memorable experiences.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Gameplay - 7/10
While the base game and the DLC don’t differ much mechanically, especially with regards to its fun and engaging turn-based combat, the latter does try to shake things up by making puzzle sections far more frequent. And while that effort succeeds in some ways—gone are the stretches where you just hold a direction for 20–30 seconds—it also backfires pretty hard. For example, in trying to make the maps more interactive, the devs have stripped away much of the magic of discovery, replacing it with more direct, mechanical methods like puzzles and minigames.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Visuals - 9/10
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s how drop-dead gorgeous the art, spritework, and visual effects are. I’d even argue it looks better now, thanks to the cohesion brought in by the DLC’s steampunk-ish theme. That said, there are a few odd sights—like an entire area filled with skeletal motifs—but overall, it’s still a treat for the eyes.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Audio - 8/10
Throes of the Watchmaker builds on the original’s already fantastic soundtrack. The new music is great, the sound effects are crisp and thematically consistent, and even basic stuff like menu navigation feels nice. There’s just not a huge leap in quality overall—it simply continues to do the job well.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Value for Money - 10/10
In case you’re wondering, this surprisingly beefy DLC for one of 2023’s standout indie RPGs is being offered to all base game owners for the incredibly generous price of zero dollars and nothing cents. That’s right—it’s completely free, as long as you’ve finished the main story. I don’t think there’s a better value than that… unless someone starts paying you to play it.
Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Review: Victory for a Price
Sea of Stars was one of my favorite RPGs of 2023. I didn’t like it quite as much as Disgaea 7, despite giving the latter a much lower score, but I loved it enough to unlock the extremely troublesome True Ending—which essentially required me to travel back in time, do cartwheels, beat up the dead, and create a market shortage of decorative shells.
It’s by no means one of the best RPGs that year. In terms of narrative alone, it suffered from being dragged down by one of the most boring protagonist pairs I’ve ever seen in a modern story-driven game—even among silent self-insert playables. On top of that, it wasn’t very good at rewarding players with satisfying conclusions to its buildups, which especially made the normal ending fall utterly flat.
That’s likely why playing its DLC, Throes of the Watchmaker, leaves such a strong impression. In many ways, it feels like the developers’ attempt to fix their mistakes from the original. However, I don’t think they went about it the right way…
There Was an Attempt to Fix the Protagonists
As mentioned, one of the biggest failures of the base game was its protagonist pair, Valere and Zale, who were about as interesting as a clean piece of paper glued to a white wall. They rarely spoke, were practically inconsequential to the plot, had weak development arcs, and mostly existed to hype up Garl, one of the game’s supporting characters.
In fact, I honestly think Sea of Stars would have been just as good if those two had been completely absent. Garl could’ve soloed the campaign and formed a wicked main character duo with any of the other three playables once they were introduced—especially with Serai.
Fortunately, Throes of the Watchmaker tried to solve this problem through… brute force? Basically, they sacked Garl, Serai, and the two other playable characters in favor of promoting Artificer—a relative nobody—in their place, likely in an attempt to undercrowd the spotlight for the protagonists. Oh, and they also introduced two antagonists with the sole purpose of giving Valere and Zale more screentime and character development.
Fortunately, the New Antagonists are Cool
The DLC’s story picks up after any of the available endings for the base game, which means it can’t reuse any of the main story’s antagonists. Depending on the ending you started Throes of the Watchmaker from, you’d have already defeated one of the final bosses available to the scenario.
To address that non-issue, a new set of adversaries is introduced. In no particular order, they are the Puppetteer, the Feral Queen, the Narcis King, Monsieur Tendu (think Dumbo, but evil), and the clockwork puppet twins Pif and Pouf.
…Okay, I listed them in order of how much I like their designs, but that’s not important. What is important is that the Puppetteer is so into her role as the “Master of Ceremonies” that she even serves as your hype squad whenever you level up; that Pif and Pouf scheme so hard and so often that they’re somehow involved in most chapter foreshadowings…
Ironically, even the Feral Queen and Narcis King, who were meant to be "mere" anti-Valere and Zale characters, ended up being more interesting than the protagonists themselves—because they didn’t have much context to contrast on the latter two in the first place.
In many ways, these new antagonists carry much of the weight in making Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker’s story entertaining, because—
Why Are There So Many Puzzles?
Exploration in the base Sea of Stars was, in my opinion, one of its high points. There were boatloads of hidden stuff you could get by running into walls, pushing unassuming objects, or throwing your grappling hook in random directions. Those elements are still present in Throes of the Watchmaker, of course. But you’d be hard-pressed to invest much time into finding them—
Because there are just too many puzzles in every area. And honestly, a lot of them feel like a waste of time. I even reckon that the Narcis King’s area alone consists of 50% puzzles, 30% exploration, 10% combat, and 10% admiring the level design.
It’s not as if the puzzles themselves are bad. The vast majority are simple, sure, but they’re also well designed. But why is there a puzzle in nearly every room? Heck, some rooms even have three. Note that I said rooms, not "fields that stretch across a dozen screens."
Those can have several puzzles at once.
Thankfully, the Combat Was Expanded Nicely
Before this, Sea of Stars already had a very cool take on turn-based combat. It featured blocking and “timed hits,” the latter functioning to extend an attack or increase its damage. Both mechanics required players to press the attack button at specific moments to either reduce damage taken or boost offensive power.
The Throes of the Watchmaker DLC added several new ways to achieve the same effects as timed hits. It varies depending on the character, but such additions include dodging lasers (yes, for an offensive boost), catching balls, and even collecting stars. You can think of them as little minigames inside combat, and doing well—or poorly—makes a big difference.
Is Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Worth It?
Yes. It’s Free, and the Base Game Is Pretty Good
Despite all my complaints, I can’t say that Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker isn’t worth getting. It’s free, after all. But beyond that, Sea of Stars itself is a solid game and definitely worth your money. Just don’t expect to be blown away by its narrative quality—especially considering you’ll need to play through its dull protagonists’ main story before getting access to the DLC in the first place.
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Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Product Information
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Title | SEA OF STARS: THROES OF THE WATCHMAKER |
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Release Date | May 20, 2025 |
Developer | Sabotage Studio |
Publisher | Sabotage Studio |
Supported Platforms | PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch |
Genre | RPG, Adventure |
Number of Players | 1-3 |
ESRB Rating | E |
Official Website | Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Website |