"Now, we have a bunch of that classic stuff, as well as new stuff, and we have a new way that resources are being distributed to players." "In the original Slime Rancher, when you moved into a new zone, we would introduce you to a new slime, a new resource, or something a little deeper," he says. Equally if you just want to get stuck in with the slimes in your conservatory, you can do that too. Popovich says the team are trying to balance that better in the sequel, so that if you want to go off exploring for a few days, you can. In the first game, if you built a very large ranch, your many needy slimes would stop you from exploring as much. Popovich says they're using the space a little bit differently this time, too.
It doesn't sound like this is a case of "bigger is better", however. While he can't give me an exact size, Popovich is reasonably sure that when Slime Rancher 2 launches in early access next year, it will be roughly as big as the first game up through the ruins. They always looks so happy, yet so dumbfounded. Monomi Park sent us this brand new exclusive image of a tabby slime hanging out in some ruins. There isn't this distance between veteran players and new players," he says. "With a sequel, everyone gets to interpret this new art that we've made all at once, the conversation happens all at once. It means he and the team get to work on something entirely new, exciting existing players and hopefully bringing in some new ones too. It's a shame the first game ended up being so limiting, but Popovich seems pretty excited at the prospect of moving on. Monomi Park have constructed a new world that they can add as much as they want to (as far as they know). Unless they completely rebuilt Slime Rancher, they were completely out of room. "Everything in the original Slime Rancher is basically happening in the same scene to have that seamless movement between zones, and we were coming up to the physical limits of this virtual space."įor the game's last few updates, the team had to be strategic about what they added.
"One of the reasons we had to move on from the first game is that we were literally, and I mean literally, reaching the bounds of the world," Popovich says. But like, a whole lot more, because the world will be much larger and more dense than what you're used to.
So, for fans of the original Slime Rancher, good news! The sequel will effectively be more of the same. Popovich starts by telling me that, for Slime Rancher 2, the studio have completely rebuilt everything from the ground up. We talked about the game's art direction, the pressure of making a follow-up to a much-loved indie, and how the sequel has the potential to be a hell of a lot bigger than the original. Naturally, I needed to find out more about these good squishy orbs, so I caught up with Nick Popovich, Slime Rancher game director and CEO of developer Monomi Park. The sequel to the slime-corralling sim is set to release in early access next year, and it'll feature a vibrant new world to explore, and some excellent bat slimes. I'm always up for being pleasantly surprised by adorable slimes. That is wonderful.Slime Rancher 2 was a bit of an unexpected announcement this E3, albeit a very welcome one. This title is a confirmed Game Pass drop, so while you can’t mark down a Slime Rancher 2 release date in your calendar just yet, you don’t have to set any money aside for it. The vast majority of what Microsoft had to show off during its E3 event will hit Game Pass on day one, which is great news for those paying the $10 or $15 a month for it. With that said, you can at least look forward to playing Slime Rancher 2 day and date as part of your Xbox Game Pass subscription. But when you think about how absolutely loaded Fall 2021 is going to be - with everything from Halo Infinite to Far Cry 6 to Horizon Forbidden West, potentially - maybe it’s a good idea for Slime Rancher 2 to stay the heck out of that window. Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of a bummer for some. The sequel, Slime Rancher 2, won’t be hitting either PCs or Xbox consoles until sometime in 2022. If you were hoping to spend any time in 2021 rustling up slimes, you’ll have to head back to the first game in order to do so. The Slime Rancher 2 release date is only “2022” right now