Sea of Stars devs remove The Completionist cameo amid charity controversy

The Completionist has been in hot water for the past few weeks after charity fraud accusations made by Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers. As a result, the developers behind Sea of Stars have opted to remove The Completionist from their game entirely.

Sea of Stars was a massive hit within the indie space, with the title allowing many to relive the RPG glory days of old with a turn-based combat system and pixel graphics reminiscent of titles like Chrono Trigger or the older Final Fantasy games.

The title received many accolades including The Game Awards trophy for Best Indie Game of 2023, one of the most prestigious awards in the industry. People really, really liked this game, us included. Dexerto gave it a perfect score when it released.

Jirard, aka The Completionist, was a fan of this game since before it even launched, being a very vocal advocate for the title. He even got his hands on the game early to complete it in time for launch and considered himself to be a close friend of Thierry Boulanger, the President and Creative Director of the studio behind both Sea of Stars and The Messenger.

However, it’d be Thierry himself who would deliver the news that Jirard’s character, Jirard the Constructionist, was being removed from Sea of Stars following the events that have transpired around the Open Hand Foundation and his charity fundraising event, Indieland.

The Completionist removed from Sea of Stars amid charity fraud accusations

In Jirard’s video on Sea of Stars, he opens with a story about his love and appreciation for Thierry and the rest of the dev team, explaining that his previous game, The Messenger, was a huge part of why he decided to stick with his YouTube channel and keep making content.

Additionally, The Completionist regularly had Thierry on his Indieland fundraiser, claiming that he gave Jirard “thousands” of keys for The Messenger to give away as incentives to donate and that he “hand-crafted” demos for Indieland to promote the title through Jirard’s charity event.

Jirard was candid about it being his undisputed Game of the Year, and claimed he told Thierry that the title was, “going to change the world and the landscape of indie games forever.”

Sea of Stars removing their cameo with The Completionist is more than just a developer removing someone from a game like how CoD’s devs did with NICKMERCS and TimTheTatman, for instance. It likely signals the end of a friendship that defined Jirard’s channel.

While neither Thierry nor Sea of Stars developer Sabotage have commented about this patch on social media, they did discuss it on the game’s Discord.

Thierry’s reasoning as to why The Completionist was removed was explained in a brief Discord post. “We arrived at this decision after carefully monitoring events over the past few weeks, and while it is not our place to pass judgment, we do make it a priority to maintain a positive and optimistic space that reflects the spirit of our intentions, be they creative or otherwise.”

At the time of writing, The Completionist has yet to respond to additional allegations made against him by both Jobst and Mutahar, with Jobst going as far as mocking Jirard and daring his family to try and sue him.