Sea of Stars triumphs in Best Indie Game category at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023

Sea of Stars winning at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 — (Image credit: Sabotage Studio)

Sea of Stars has won Best Indie Game at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 powered by Intel.

In a year that's given us so many big-budget AAA blockbusters, it's worth highlighting just how strong 2023's indie offerings have been over the course. Sea of Stars has been crowned the best among them at this year's Golden Joysticks, with Sabotage Studio's sophomore RPG venture fending off some stiff competition in the process.

Here's the category's Golden Joystick Awards 2023 nominee list in full:

Dave the Diver
Pizza Tower
Dredge
Cocoon
Viewfinder
Sea of Stars (Winner)

Following 2018's The Messenger, Sea of Stars unfolds in the same wider universe while telling its own tale with its own cast of characters.

With a vibrant and beautiful art style that pays homage to some of the role-playing classics of the PS1 era – the likes of Alundra, Suikoden and early Final Fantasy games immediately spring to mind – Sea of Stars is driven by turn-based combat, with a suite of activities that bridge the time between battles; not least sailing, cooking, fishing, and visiting genre-staple taverns.

In conversation with GamesRadar+ earlier this year, game director Thierry Boulanger explored his career to date – from using The Messenger to look back over his own past grief, to using Sea of Stars as a vehicle for hope and looking forward.

Boulander said: "The thing that is there consistently throughout is that no matter how daunting or gruesome the thing in front of you is, if you apply yourself, if you do everything you can, if you rely on friendship, you can make it through."

All of which bodes well for the future of Sabotage Studio because after back-to-back JRPG and Metroidvania hits, the Sea of Stars dev says it already has the theme for its next game.

Discover the best games of 2023 at the best prices by checking out the Golden Joystick Awards Steam sale page

PRODUCTS

Joe Donnelly is a sports editor from Glasgow and former features editor at GamesRadar+. A mental health advocate, Joe has written about video games and mental health for The Guardian, New Statesman, VICE, PC Gamer and many more, and believes the interactive nature of video games makes them uniquely placed to educate and inform. His book Checkpoint considers the complex intersections of video games and mental health, and was shortlisted for Scotland's National Book of the Year for non-fiction in 2021. As familiar with the streets of Los Santos as he is the west of Scotland, Joe can often be found living his best and worst lives in GTA Online and its PC role-playing scene.