Monomi Park’s fantastic first-person, open-world monster-farming simulation, Slime Rancher has been charming the heck out of players since its 2017 release. Now we’re getting more of that in the form of Slime Rancher 2, coming to Xbox and PC in 2022.
Not much info on the impending sequel was given, just footage of colorful slimes being sucked up and ranched, as well as news that the release will be an Xbox timed console exclusive.
The first Slime Rancher does exactly what it says on the box. You explore a vast cartoony wilderness, sucking up various breeds of slime with their handy VacPack, and then bring them back to your base in order to cover them in delicious ranch. No, you ranch those slimes, building pens, breeding them together to create new slimes, and harvesting the precious “plorts” the slimes produce to purchase new equipment for your farm.
What makes the game so compelling is the simple satisfaction of the core slime vacuuming mechanic. It’s presented like a first-person shooter, only instead of shooting we’re essentially inhaling these goofy, smiling slime critters and then spitting them out again, like some sort of mechanical Kirby. That mechanic, combined with the idea of performing daily maintenance on your colorful cartoon farm, makes for a gameplay loop that’s hard to resist, even if it gets a little repetitive. Plus there’s the whole slimes being freaking adorable thing. That helps.
Read More: After A Year In Early Access, Slime Rancher Has Become One Of My Favorite Games Of 2017
It’s a very chill and charming joint, and one of the most unique farming games you’re likely to come across. The original game is currently available on PC, Xboxes, and PlayStations, and is part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription on console and PC. As of September of last year the game has sold more than three million copies. So yeah, folks dig it. You can see why more than a handful of fans are probably pretty jazzed by the reveal of the sequel today. They’re probably already planning where to place their pens.