The long wait for the sequel to the sleeper hit life-sim adventure game Slime Rancher is almost over. The game’s developer Monomi Park has revealed that Slime Rancher 2 will be heading into Early Access on September 22. Players will be able to jump into the game’s action on both PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles during its Early Access period.
Monomi Park announced the release date for the game’s Early Access period over on Twitter, where the number of likes in response to the new has been fairly substantial.
Slime Rancher 2 will reprise the engaging and successful formula of the original Slime Rancher, with added extras and gameplay improvements. Monomi Park has explained that the game’s Early Access period will last for 18 months on both PC and Xbox, with the potential for this to be extended. The reasoning behind this lies in the developers’ commitment to being a “non-crunch studio.” This means the game will basically be given a healthy amount of time to be fully developed, iterated upon and polished up ahead of its full release.
Slime Rancher 2 will make use of its Early Access period as a way of introducing players to its new storyline and the open-world environment of Rainbow Island. According to the latest developer update on the game’s Steam page, Slime Rancher 2 “is where the world of Slime Rancher will grow and evolve for years to come.” Presumably, this means that the developers plan for longevity in this version of the game, which could potentially be by way of further updates, DLC or other expansion content.
As well as continuing their journey as series protagonist Beatrix LeBeau, players can look forward to some updated visuals in Slime Rancher 2. According to the developers, the game is currently in a “highly polished state,” after undergoing a “substantial graphical leap over the original.” Sounds exciting, to say the least, especially considering what it could look like on the current-gen Xbox Series X/S. The full version of the game will apparently feature even more slimes to get to grips with, as well as new places to explore and gadgets to discover and build. It’ll be a while until that’s ready to go, but until then it sounds like there’s plenty of potential and demand for the slime-hoovering action in Early Access.
As far as potential goes, the sky’s the limit for Slime Rancher 2. The original Slime Rancher has been something of a cult hit, generating over 7 million downloads and more than 2 million unit sales across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 to date. Whether or not the sequel will gather the same kind of momentum remains to be seen. However, it’s probably safe to assume that the community is excited about its release if the reaction on social media is anything to go by.
Slime Rancher 2 will launch in Early Access on September 22. It’ll be available for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, as well as on Xbox Series X/S.
